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WESTMINSTER  ABBEY 


WESTMINSTER  ABBEY 

ITS  MEMORIES  AND  ITS  MESSAGE 


BY 

MARY    STURGEON. 

AUTHOR   OF    '  STUDIES    OF    CONTEMPORARY    POETS  '    ETC. 

WITH  AD<^  ETCHED  FT^O^ISPIECE 
^3<J)  FIFTEEO^   D\^WIHGS  Bl 

LOUIS    WEIRTER   R.B.A. 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 
by  Tumbull  (^  Spears,  Edinburgh 


PREFACE 


i^'  s-  <s  S 


THE  Abbey  is  the  spiritual  home  of  the  English- 
speaking  peoples  ;  and  this  book  is  an  attempt 
thus  to  see  some  of  its  outlines.  But  by  the 
word  '  spiritual '  is  not  only  meant  '  religious '  ;  the  word 
'  home '  does  not  imply  simply  the  fabric  of  the  church ; 
and  the  word  '  people '  means  something  more  than  the 
kings  and  other  great  ones  with  whom  the  Abbey  is  usually 
associated. 

That  the  actual  building  may  be  called  the  home  of  the 
English  Church  (and  in  the  Church's  most  significant  attitude 
of  relation  to  the  State)  is  too  obvious  to  need  restating. 
Many  books  have  been  written  about  the  Abbey  in  this  its 
theological  and  dynastic  aspect ;  and  they  usually  stress  either 
history  or  architecture  according  to  the  bent  of  each  individual 
writer.  The  reader  will  naturally  turn  to  those  books  for  a 
detailed  historical  or  architectural  account :  this  one  does  not 
claim  to  be  such  a  history  of  its  subject. 

But  what  springs  to  the  mind  more  and  more  clearly 
as  one  thinks  about  the  Abbey  and  perceives  its  significance 
is  the  amazing  way  it  has  come  to  represent  the  spirit  of 
our  race  in  all  its  various  activity.  So  that  in  addition  to 
Religion — that  is  to  say,  Christianity  in  its  characteristic 
English  development — we  find  living  here  our  patriotism  and 
our  poetry,  our  statecraft  and  our  science,  our  philosophy  and 
our  art,  our  courage,  adventure,  and  romance.  .  .  .  The  list 
is  indeed  too  long  to  recount,  beginning  with  the  devotion 
of  those  English  workmen  who  built  the  church,  and  ending 

V 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

with  the  genius  of  the  last  great  Englishman  who  was  laid 
to  rest  within  it. 

Very  varied  are  these  spiritual  qualities  which  have  come 
to  be  focused  in  the  Abbey,  and  which  are,  in  sum,  the  Spirit 
of  our  Race.  To  recall  them  and  the  Great  Dead  in  whom 
they  originated  is  a  stimulus  and  an  inspiration.  But  other 
interest  gathers  about  them  as  we  watch  the  familiar  native 
touch  upon  them  all,  and  observe  that  they  are  English  not 
only  in  their  merits  but  in  their  defects  ;  and  that  a  history 
of  our  civilization,  in  its  weakness  as  well  as  its  strength, 
might  be  read  from  these  manifestations  of  the  Spirit  of  a 
Nation  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

Our  physical  history,  with  its  origin  in  the  union  of 
many  races,  is  implicit  in  the  beginnings  of  Westminster.  It 
is  symbolized  in  the  very  fabric  itself,  where  all  sorts  of 
foreign  elements  have  been  assimilated,  and  where  the 
minds  and  hands  of  several  nations  have  co-operated  in 
labour. 

In  the  foundations  of  our  civil  life  many  stones  were  laid 
by  the  monks  of  this  '  Monastery  in  the  West " ;  and  thus 
there  enters  into  the  national  spirit  a  vital  element  drawn  from 
the  Benedictine  Rule. 

In  dynastic  history  the  close  association  of  the  Crown 
with  the  Church  at  Westminster  is  seen  to  take  its  rise  in 
two  specifically  English  things  in  the  royal  Founders — the 
warm  affection  which  existed  between  the  Confessor  and  his 
people,  and  the  deep  piety  of  Henry  III. 

Our  political  life  was  almost  in  a  literal  sense  cradled 
vi 


PREFACE 

in  the  Abbey ;  for  it  was  here  in  the  Chapter  House  that 
the  nation  first  became  articulate  through  its  House  of 
Commons. 

Of  our  artistic  life  as  it  appears  in  the  Abbey  one  hardly 
dares  to  speak,  so  unworthily  have  later  ages  dealt  with  their 
inheritance.  Yet  though  the  record  of  that  stands  only  too 
plain  to  read  as  a  radical  national  defect,  in  it  stands  also  the 
evidence  that  we  once  were  an  art-loving  nation.  Old  sculpture, 
painting,  and  metal-work  prove  it,  apart  from  the  fabric  itself. 
Happy  for  us  that  our  poetic  genius  dwells  there  too,  with 
drama  and  music,  to  give  assurance  that  some  grace  of  art 
still  lives  in  this  English  spirit. 

But  there,  more  characteristically,  is  our  statesmanship 
with  its  aims  of  freedom  and  justice,  our  imperialism  with 
its  ideal  of  equality,  our  science  with  its  persistent  application 
to  practical  service,  and  our  chivalry,  in  crusades  both  old 
and  new.  It  is  not  necessary  to  assert  that  these  ideals  were 
ever  fully  realized  in  order  to  admic  their  grandeur;  and  one 
need  not  be  ashamed  to  claim,  as  constant  elements  of  this 
English  spirit,  certain  humbler  qualities.  For  from  first  to 
last  among  the  people  who  count  in  this  spiritual  history — 
whether  in  the  workers  who  piled  the  stones  of  the  church, 
or  in  the  kingly  founders ;  whether  in  a  great  genius  like 
Newton,  a  great  sailor  like  Blake,  or  a  great  saint  like 
Livingstone — an  examination  of  the  facts  shows  that  integrity 
lay  at  the  root  of  character,  and  that  industry  was  the  constant 
tool  of  greatness. 

It  is  a  subject  which  ought  to  be  dealt  with  worthily ;  and 

vii 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

some  day,  perhaps,  it  may  be.     In  the  meantime,  these  are  a 
few  imperfect  sketches  for  the  larger  picture. 

The  materials  for  this  book  have  been  drawn  from  various 

sources,   many  of  which  (apart  from  old    chroniclers   such  as 

Gaimar,    Matthew    Paris,    Robert    of    Gloucester,    Holinshed, 

Fabyan,   and  others)   are    named   in    the    Bibliography.      But 

I    wish    to    acknowledge    especially    my    debt     to    Professor 

Lethaby  for  his  book  ;   and    to    tender   warm    thanks   to  the 

Rev.  H.  F.  Westlake   for   the   help  generally   which    he   has 

kindly  given. 

MARY  STURGEON 

Oxford,  January  1921 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    LIGHT  IN  THE  MIST  i 

II.   ART  IS  LONG  i6 

III.  LONG  LIVE  THE  KING!  32 

IV.  A  BENEDICTINE  MONASTERY  50 
V.   THE  HOLY  PLACE  69 

VL    "WE  PRAISE  THEE,  O  LORD"  89 

VII.   THE  HOME  OF  FREEDOM  107 

VIIL   THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII— I  123 

IX.   THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII— II  142 

X.    LIFE,  AND  THE  TOMBS  160 

XL   THE  SPIRIT  OF  A  NATION  180 

Xn.   THE  LAW  AND  THE  PROPHETS  204 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  221 


IX 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


i'At;K 


THE  SOUTH  AMBULATORY  Frontispiece 

LIGHT  IN  THE  MIST  8 

THE  UNDERCROFT  i8 

"VI VAT  REX!"  40 

MEDITATION  52 

SOLITUDE  56 

THE  JERUSALEM  CHAMBER  64 

THE  HOLY  PLACE  ^2 

"TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS!"  96 

THE  HOME  OF  FREEDOM                                   ,  112 

THE  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII  126 

THE  TOMB  OF  HENRY  VII  152 

THE  VIGIL  168 

"MORS  lANUA  VIT^"  176 

THE  CHOIR  SCREEN  184 

POETS'  CORNER  208 


V 


XI 


CHAPTER  I :   Light  in  the  Mist 

THROUGH  the  enchantment  of  a  London  night  the 
Abbey  gleams  like  a  lantern.  Its  great  mass  rises 
darkly  beyond  the  symphony  of  blue  and  silver  which 
fills  the  streets  below  it.  Shadowy  but  majestic,  mysterious 
yet  immensely  convincing,  it  looms  over  the  surprising  loveli- 
ness of  the  scene  as  Eternity  above  the  little  clamour  of  Time. 
The  misty,  atmospheric  blues  of  nocturnal  London  halo  the 
lamps  and  fill  the  intervening  spaces  with  ethereal  colour 
and  deepen  overhead  to  indigo.  The  wet  paving  of  path  and 
road,  gleaming  like  faery  gold,  reflects  the  quick  lights  of 
passing  carriages  in  shining  procession.  All  down  there 
is  bright,  moving,  changeful ;  and  behind  the  Abbey  rears  its 
silent  and,  but  for  the  lighted  window,  almost  unseen  form, 
quietly  opposing  a  sense  of  infinity  to  the  transience  flowing 
round  its  feet. 

The  light  of  its  window  is  not  so  clear  as  the  lights  in  the 
street.  It  does  not  penetrate  so  far,  nor  shine  so  steadily  on 
daunting  corners,  nor  search  so  inquisitively  the  faces  of  the 
passers-by.  It  is  an  older  light  than  they,  and  of  a  different 
order  from  their  cold,  rational,  inquiring  rays.  Filtered  through 
colour  soft  and  warm,  it  is  like  the  glow  of  a  home  fire  waiting 
there  at  the  end  of  the  road  to  welcome  the  children  back  from 
their  journeying. 

The  traveller  may  go  far  away,  in  distance  or  in  thought. 
He  may  roam  the  world  of  seas  and  continents  or  adventure  a 
more  difficult  universe  of  ideas.  He  may  find  brighter  lights 
to  illumine  eye  and  mind ;  and  he  may  think  that  he  has  done 

A  I 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

for  ever  with  the  misty  region  to  which  the  Abbey  and  all  it 
means  belong — symbolized  by  that  foggy  island  and  the  spot  on 
Thames-bank  which  is  its  heart.  But  he  will  come  back,  if  not 
in  his  very  body  to  the  Abbey  walls,  yet  in  his  soul,  winging 
to  the  home-light  of  that  window  and  the  Beauty  which  is 
Truth. 

The  Abbey  was  born  in  light.  Absolutely  the  first  human 
name  that  is  associated  with  it,  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  is 
Lucius.  Put  back  into  its  original  Celtic,  Lucius  is  Lleuer  Mawr  ; 
and  translated  thence  into  modern  English,  it  means  Great  Light. 
So  that,  peering  back  through  the  mist  of  centuries,  one  sees 
the  Abbey  from  the  beginning  as  light  in  a  dark  place.  Four 
hundred  years  later  the  sign  appears  again,  when  St  Peter 
descended  one  wild  night  to  consecrate  the  church  he  loved,  and 
filled  it  with  a  radiance  that  shone  along  the  river  and  dazzled 
the  eyes  of  the  solitary  fisherman  watching  from  the  shore. 
And  so  on  from  century  to  century,  passing  from  the  fitful 
gleams  of  legend  to  the  full  glory  of  the  age  when  Religion 
was  Art  and  when  men  builded  for  love  of  God  and  of  Beauty, 
with  infinite  patient  labour,  the  lovely  fabric  as  it  stands.  Always 
a  light  in  a  dark  place  ;  and  never  brighter  than  when,  fostering 
the  new  knowledge  which  was  coming  like  another  dawn,  it 
sheltered  Caxton  and  his  printing  press  within  its  precincts,  was 
mutilated  and  purged  of  errors  by  a  harsh  King,  and  welcoming 
poets  and  philosophers  and  men  of  science,  it  drew  into  itself 
the  light  which  was  to  threaten  its  older  truth. 

One  sees  how  and  why  the  idea  of  light  should  have  come 
to  be  associated  with  the  Abbey  and  have  grown  into  its  very 

2 


LIGHT    IN    THE    MIST 

history.  Poor  benighted  creatures  that  we  islanders  are,  from 
the  very  physiography  of  our  land  light  is  what  we  crave  for 
most  and  rejoice  in  most  when  it  rarely  and  fitfully  comes. 
True,  those  distant  ancestors  did  not  know  our  last  horror  of 
black  London  fog,  penalty  of  our  sin  of  coal-burning.  But  the 
sun  must  have  been  always  a  perfunctory  and  feeble  visitor  to 
these  lands ;  and  at  Westminster  especially,  the  fenlands  of 
those  early  times  must  often  have  been  dark  with  mist  and 
dreary  with  rain. 

The  site  of  the  Abbey  was  a  rough,  wild  place.  They  call 
it  '  Thorny  Island '  in  the  old  records  ;  and  the  words  have  the 
refreshing  aptitude  of  so  many  ancient  place-names.  For  with 
the  river  on  the  east,  streams  flowing  round  the  south  and  west, 
and  a  marshy  creek  where  is  now  the  lake  in  St  James's  Park, 
the  place  was  virtually  an  island.  It  was,  too,  overgrown  with 
thickets  of  thorn  and  bramble ;  and  these  were  infested,  if  we 
may  judge  by  the  bones  of  beasts  which  have  been  dug  up  at 
several  points  in  Westminster,  by  the  wild  ox,  the  elk,  and  the 
red  deer.  There  seems  no  doubt  that  the  locality  richly  deserved 
the  description  given  of  it  in  King  Offa's  charter  of  a.d.  785 
of  "the  terrible  place." 

But  Thorny  Island,  despite  its  terror,  had  other  significance 
and  importance  in  that  England  of  the  Roman  occupation. 
The  little  town  of  Londinium  lay  a  couple  of  miles  to  the  north- 
east. But  London  Bridge  was  not  yet ;  and  there  was  a  ford 
across  the  river  at  this  point.  Thus  the  island  was  linked  up 
with  the  world  and  the  great  civilizing  power  of  it  by  the 
route  which  led  through  Kent  to  the  sea  and  eventually  to 

3 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Rome.  Travellers  along  the  Roman  road  halted  here ;  and  it 
is  easy  to  credit  the  tradition  that  there  had  been  erected  at 
or  near  the  present  position  of  the  Abbey  a  Roman  temple  of 
Apollo. 

From  some  of  the  stories  it  appears  that  the  temple  was  in 
existence  before  a.d.  154.  Others  indicate  that  it  was  built 
much  later.  But  whatever  its  date,  one  wants  to  believe  that  it 
did  exist.  It  fits  so  beautifully,  this  thought  of  the  Sun-god  in 
Thorny  Island,  with  our  vision  of  light  in  the  mist.  Perhaps 
it  fits  too  well.  Yet,  groping  in  the  remote  past,  even  legend 
and  tradition  are  illuminating ;  and  for  the  beginnings  of  West- 
minster they  are  all  we  have. 

When,  in  the  early  days  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
first  full  history  of  the  Abbey  was  compiled,  the  author  sternly 
rejected  the  legendary  material.  That  is  just  what  he  would 
do,  of  course,  belonging  as  he  did  to  that  rational  eighteenth 
century.  Besides,  he  was  a  hundred  years  nearer  than  we 
are  to  those  old  rogues  the  monks  who,  it  is  said,  either 
invented  the  stories  out  of  hand  or  miraculously  made  them 
grow  from  a  seedling — hint  of  a  word  here  and  a  word  there. 
Sir  Christopher  Wren  too,  who  was  architect  to  the  Abbey  in 
his  day  (and  who  was  nearer  still  to  the  monks),  scouted  the 
idea  of  a  Roman  temple  here.  But  distance  lends  enchantment 
to  things  other  and  more  abstract  than  Nature  ;  and  our  remote- 
ness in  time  gives  a  kindlier  colour  to  our  view  of  monkish  fraud. 
We  do  not  want  to  spurn  those  old  legends.  With  a  less  intimate 
feeling  on  the  question,  one  simply  cannot  evoke  a  proper  rage 
against  the  lively  inventions  by  which  the  brothers  of  the  West 
4 


LIGHT    IN    THE    MIST 

Monastery  tried  to  beat  their  competitors  of  the  East  Monastery 
at  St  Paul's.  We  rejoice  in  them  rather,  secretly  grateful  to 
the  monks  for  what  an  austere  historian  calls  the  lies  that 
they  inscribed  in  their  parchment  rolls.  Lies,  indeed  I  The 
imaginative  truth  which  enshrined  Apollo,  God  of  Light  and 
of  Poetry,  as  the  sovereign  deity  of  the  most  sacred  spot  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race  was  the  inspiration  of  genius. 

It  is  poetically  right,  too,  that  when  the  temple  of  Apollo 
was  destroyed  by  an  earthquake  in  a.d.   154,  it  was  Lucius  of 
the  Great  Light  who  built  the  first  Christian  church  upon  its 
ruins.     The  whole  legend  of  Lucius  is  fascinating.     He  is  said 
to  have  been  the  first  Christian  king  in  these  islands ;  and  to 
have  built  his  little  wooden  church  on  the  temple  site  about 
A.D.  178.     Other  English  churches  claim  him  as  their  founder, 
and  it  is  a  busy  and  a  wealthy  man  he  must  have  been  if  he 
was  concerned  in  them  all.     But  his  fame  is  not  confined  to 
England ;  for  he  put  off  his  British  crown  in  order  to  go  as  a 
missionary,  with  his  sister  Emerita,  to  East  Switzerland.     In 
the  cathedral  of  Coire  in  the  Grisons,  where  he  was  the  first 
bishop,  there  is  preserved  a  shrine  containing  relics  of  Lucius 
and  Emerita,  and  his  name  lingers  in  the  pass  called  after  him 
the   Luciensteig.     On   the   mountain-side  above   the   town   of 
Coire  there  is  still  pointed  out  a  rocky  ledge  from  which  he  used 
to  preach,  in  a  voice  so  clear  that  people  could  hear  it  twelve 
miles  away,  on  the  pass  that  they  afterward  named  after  him. 
He  was  martyred  at  the  castle  of  Martiola  in  a.d.  201,  and 
though  it  is  little  we  know  in  England  of  our  Lucius,  there  is 
a  sixteenth-century  fresco  painting  of  him  in  a  village  of  the 

5 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Grisons,  which  has  been  reproduced  by  Mr  Troutbeck  in  his 
Founders  of  Westminster  Abbey. 

Legend  apart,  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  church 
of  that  period  was  built  by  Lucius.  But  a  church  certainly 
existed  close  to  the  present  site,  for  the  builders  of  more  recent 
times  have  discovered  portions  of  a  Roman  wall  and  of  Roman 
flooring  underneath  the  nave.  Roman  bricks  were  built  into 
the  walls  of  the  Jerusalem  Chamber  by  Abbot  Litlington,  and 
the  sarcophagus  of  Valerius  Amandrinus  was  discovered  in  1869 
under  the  north  green  of  the  Abbey.  This  solid  vestige  of 
the  original  Roman  building  may  now  be  seen  in  the  entrance 
to  the  Chapter  House. 

But  we  are  still  in  the  region  of  mist ;  and  that  first  point 
of  light  passed,  there  is  not  another  gleam  for  more  than  four 
centuries.  Then  we  reach  an  historical  name — Sebert ;  and 
a  date — a.d.  616. 

Near  the  high  altar  of  the  Abbey,  in  the  south  ambulatory 
behind  the  sedilia  {i.e.  the  seats  of  the  clergy  to  the  right  of  the 
altar),  that  name  and  date  will  be  found  upon  a  tomb.  They 
represent  the  first  record  of  any  certainty  that  we  possess 
concerning  the  foundation  of  the  Abbey ;  and  the  tomb,  though 
it  is  not  of  course  the  original  resting-place  of  Sebert  and  his 
queen,  and  though  its  beauty  is  humble  under  its  low  arch, 
ranks  first  among  the  proud  tombs  of  kingly  founders. 

There  is  indeed  one  quiet  story  which  claims  for  a 
London  citizen  named  Sebert  the  honour  of  having  founded  the 
Benedictine  Monastery  here.  It  is  attractive ;  but  the  modest 
voice  is  silenced  by  the  clamorous  tradition  that  that  Sebert 
6 


LIGHT    IN    THE    MIST 

and  his  wife  who  were  buried  near  the  altar  of  the  church  they 
built  were  Sebert  King  of  Essex  and  Ethelgoda  his  queen. 
The  Venerable  Bede  tells  that  Sebert  was  converted  to 
Christianity  by  St  Augustine.  Stow  says,  giving  of  course  the 
accepted  story  of  his  time :  "  This  Monasterie  was  founded  and 
builded  by  Sebert  King  of  the  East  Saxons  upon  the  persuasion 
of  Ethelbert  King  of  Kent."  And  this  version  would  appear  to 
be  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  when  in  1308  the  tomb  was 
removed  for  the  third  and  last  time,  the  leaden  coffins  were 
opened  and  "A  part  of  Sebert's  royal  robes  was  found,  and 
his  thumb  ring,  in  which  was  set  a  ruby  of  great  value." 
The  tomb  was  always  regarded  as  the  founder's,  and  was  for 
that  reason  carefully  guarded  at  successive  rebuildings. 

It  is  in  connexion  with  Sebert's  church  that  we  find  the 
legend  of  the  consecration  by  St  Peter  himself  which  is 
repeated  so  many  times  by  the  monkish  historians.  Sebert 
had  dedicated  this  his  Monastery  in  the  West  to  St  Peter  ; 
and  the  rite  of  consecration  was  to  be  performed  by  Mellitus, 
the  Bishop  of  London.  As  the  time  for  the  ceremony  drew 
near,  people  gathered  from  afar  to  witness  it ;  and  they  pitched 
their  tents  at  a  little  distance  from  the  Abbey,  on  the  drier 
ground  beyond  the  marsh. 

On  the  eve  of  the  expected  day — it  was  Sunday  night  and 
dark  weather — a  fisherman  named  Edric  was  fixing  his  nets 
by  the  shore  of  Thorny  Island  when  he  saw  a  bright  light 
appear  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  He  rowed  toward  the 
light,  and  found  awaiting  him  an  old  man  of  strange  dress 
and  commanding  aspect,  who  asked  to  be  ferried  to  the  opposite 

7 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

shore.  Edric  took  him  into  the  boat,  rowed  him  across,  and 
landed  him.  The  mysterious  stranger  struck  the  ground  where 
he  stood  twice  with  his  staff,  and  two  springs  of  water  gushed 
out.  Then,  telling  Edric  to  wait  there  for  him,  he  walked 
away  into  the  darkness,  going  in  the  direction  of  the  new 
monastery.  Immediately  afterward  an  unearthly  radiance 
shone  all  round  about,  in  which  the  astonished  fisherman  saw 
the  church  stand  out  in  clear  bright  light.  Angels  descended 
from  heaven  upon  it,  carrying  lighted  candles  ;  and  others 
again,  swinging  censers  that  filled  the  air  with  sweet  scent. 
Edric  watched,  awestruck,  while  the  whole  intricate  ceremony 
of  consecration  was  performed  and  the  stranger  returned  to 
him.  Then,  to  a  request  for  food,  he  confessed  that  he  had 
caught  nothing :  he  had  been  too  amazed  and  terrified.  The 
Apostle  gently  revealed  himself:  "I  am  Peter,  Keeper  of  the 
Keys  of  Heaven.  When  Mellitus  arrives  to-morrow,  tell  him 
what  you  have  seen,  and  show  him  the  token  that  I,  St  Peter, 
have  consecrated  my  church  of  St  Peter,  Westminster,  and 
have  anticipated  the  Bishop  of  London.  For  yourself,  go  out 
into  the  river :  you  will  catch  a  plentiful  supply  of  fish,  whereof 
the  greater  part  shall  be  salmon.  This  I  have  granted  on  two 
conditions :  first,  that  you  never  fish  again  on  Sundays ; 
secondly,  that  you  pay  a  tithe  of  them  to  the  Abbey  of 
Westminster."  Then  the  Apostle  was  withdrawn  into  heaven  ; 
and  Edric,  proceeding  to  his  fishing,  was  rewarded  with  the 
great  promised  draught. 

The  next  day,  when  Mellitus  was  preparing  the  holy  oil 
for  the  consecration,  Edric  came  to  him  carrying  a  present  of 
8 


LIGHT    IN    THE    MIST 

salmon,  and  related  what  he  had  seen.  They  entered  the  church 
together,  and  Mellitus  saw  the  indubitable  marks  of  consecra- 
tion— the  symbolic  letters  upon  the  pavement,  the  walls 
anointed,  and  the  remains  of  the  candles  that  the  angels  had 
used. 

A  poet  of  the  thirteenth  century,  writing  the  story  of 
Edward  the  Confessor  for  Alianore,  riche  Reine  d'Engletere, 
wove  this  incident  into  it.     So,  to  the  astonishment  of  Mellitus  : 

The  church  he  sees  sprinkled, 

And  marked  with  twelve  crosses  ; 

Within,  without,  the  walls  moistened. 

Sprinkled  with  holy  water, 

And  the  alphabet  on  the  pavement, 

Written  distinctly  twice, 

And  the  marks  of  the  oil, 

And  chief  of  the  miracles, 

The  remains  of  the  candles. 

Convinced  and  rejoicing,  the  Bishop  called  in  the  waiting 
people  and  celebrated  the  Mass.  From  this  time  forth  the 
place  was  called,  not  Thorny  Island,  but  the  West  Monastery ; 
and  until  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  Thames  fisher- 
men paid  a  tithe  of  the  fish  they  caught  to  the  Abbey.  And 
the  Abbot  defended  his  right  at  law. 

Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  elegy  for  Dean  Stanley,  made  a 
beautiful  rendering  of  this  the  central  legend  of  the  Abbey : 

Rough  was  the  winter  eve  ; 

Their  craft  the  fishers  leave, 
And  down  over  the  Thames  the  darkness  drew. 

One  still  lags  last,  and  turns,  and  eyes  the  Pile 

Huge  in  the  gloom,  across  in  Thorny  Isle, 
King  Scbert's  work,  the  wondrous  Minster  new. 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

'Tis  Lambeth  now,  where  then 
They  moored  their  boats  among  the  bulrush  stems  ; 

And  that  new  Minster  in  the  matted  fen 
The  world-famed  Abbey  by  the  westering  Thames. 

His  mates  are  gone,  and  he 

For  mist  can  scarcely  see 
A  strange  wayfarer  coming  to  his  side  ; 

Who  bade  him  loose  his  boat  and  fix  his  oar, 

And  row  him  straightway  to  the  further  shore. 
And  wait  while  he  did  there  a  space  abide. 

The  fisher  awed  obeys, 
That  voice  had  note  so  clear  of  sweet  command  ; 

Through  pouring  tide  he  pulls  and  drizzling  haze, 
And  sets  his  freight  ashore  on  Thorny  strand. 

The  Minster's  outlined  mass 

Rose  dim  from  the  morass. 
And  thitherward  the  stranger  took  his  way. 

Lo,  on  a  sudden  all  the  Pile  is  bright. 

Nave,  choir  and  transept  glorified  with  light. 
While  tongues  of  fire  on  coign  and  carving  play ! 

And  heavenly  odours  fair 
Come  streaming  with  the  floods  of  glory  in. 

And  carols  float  along  the  happy  air 
As  if  the  reign  of  joy  did  now  begin. 

Then  all  again  is  dark  ; 

And  by  the  fisher's  bark 
The  unknown  passenger  returning  stands. 

O  Saxon  fisher  I     Thou  hast  had  with  thee 

The  fisher  from  the  Lake  of  Galilee. 
So  saith  he,  blessing  him  with  outspread  hands ; 

Then  fades,  but  speaks  the  while  : 
At  dawn  thou  to  King  Sebert  shall  relate 

How  his  St  Peter's  church  in  Thorny  Isle 
Peter,  his  friend,  with  light  did  consecrate. 


lO 


LIGHT    IN    THE    MIST 

A  tapestry  picture  of  Sebert  hangs  above  his  tomb,  over 
the  four  panels  of  the  sedilia  where  he  was  originally  painted 
in  company  with  his  patron  saint  Peter,  Edward  the  Confessor, 
and  St  John.  It  docs  not  claim  to  be  a  portrait,  of  course, 
since  the  original,  whose  vanishing  outlines  were  last  seen  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  could  not  itself  have  been  painted 
earlier  than  the  thirteenth.  But  the  artist  of  that  time,  who 
probably  belonged  to  the  school  of  painters  which  Henry  III 
had  gathered  at  Westminster,  was  no  doubt  familiaf  with  the 
traditional  aspect  of  the  first  founder  ;  and  it  is  with  tradition 
that  we  are  still  concerned  :  we  are  not  even  yet  on  the  clear 
ground  of  history. 

A  dark  interval  supervened  after  Sebert's  death  in  6i6, 
when  his  three  wild  sons  quarrelled  with  the  Bishop  of  London 
because  he  refused  them  the  sacramental  bread  at  the 
communion  service  in  St  Paul's  ;  and  finally  departed  from 
Christianity.  There  was  now  no  royal  hand  to  protect  the 
little  monastery  from  the  pagan  Saxons,  and  no  one  knows 
certainly  what  happened  to  it  in  the  three  centuries  which 
followed.  Save  for  the  fragmentary  evidence  of  two  charters, 
its  authentic  history  is  a  blank :  something  worse  than  mist 
had  settled  down  upon  it. 

But  the  monkish  historians  of  a  later  age  were  not  to 
be  daunted  by  a  mere  fact  like  that ;  and  he  of  Westminster 
named  Sporley  rose  to  the  occasion  with  something  more  than 
heroic  stature.  Widmore  says  that  Sporley  invented  a  complete 
succession  of  persons  who  are  said  to  have  presided  over  the 
monastery  during  this  space ;  and  so  as  to  do  the  thing  really 

n 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

well,  he  carefully  distinguished  "  which  of  them  were  provosts 
and  priors  and  which  abbots ;  and  farther  to  note  the  precise 
time  of  each  person's  presiding  here,  as  likewise  in  what  year, 
and  even  on  what  day  of  the  month  many  of  them  died,"  That 
was  very  thoughtful  of  Sporley,  for  by  this  means  we  come  into 
possession  of  picturesque  incidents  that  we  could  not  possibly 
have  invented  for  ourselves.  There  is,  for  example,  the  little 
sketch  of  the  Abbot  Ordbright  presenting  to  Offa,  the  powerful 
King  of  Mercia,  a  fine  gold  bracelet.  Astute  old  man,  fore- 
runner of  all  the  courtier  abbots  and  deans  who  since  his  time 
have  wooed  their  kingly  masters !  He  gained  a  friend  for  his 
neglected  and  decayed  monastery,  as  well  as  "  ten  ploughlands 
at  Aldenham  in  Hertfordshire."  Offa  is  said  to  have  restored 
and  enlarged  the  church,  to  have  "  collected  a  parcel  of  monks  " 
here;  and  even — too  significant  and  prophetic  act — to  have 
deposited  in  the  Abbey  out  of  reverence  for  St  Peter  the 
coronation  robes  and  regalia. 

For  the  period  of  Offa,  however,  there  is  one  bit  of  real 
evidence — his  charter  of  785 — among  the  existing  records  at  the 
Abbey.  This  charter  grants  from  himself  the  ten  ploughlands 
that  we  have  already  noted  ;  and  confirms  to  the  possession  of 
the  Abbey  certain  other  property  at  Staines,  Teddington,  and 
elsewhere,  together  with  "  three  hides  and  a  half  of  land  about 
the  monastery  "  which  had  been  already  given  to  it  by  Sebert. 

The  church  must  have  suffered  heavily  from  the  incursions 
of  the  Danes  after  Offa's  death ;  and  especially  when,  in  852,  a 
great  fleet  of  their  vessels  sailed  up  the  Thames  and  laid  waste 
London.  We  are  told  that  "  the  buildings  were  reduced  to  a 
12 


LIGHT    IN    THE    MIST 

mean  and  low  condition  "  ;  and  we  can  readily  believe  it.  We 
even  suspect  that  they  must  have  remained  in  that  condition ; 
but  no,  they  revive  miraculously  with  the  advent  of  Alfred. 
For  our  first  sailor-king,  after  defeating  the  Danes  in  their 
garrison  at  London,  not  only  "  honourably  rebuilt  the  city  and 
made  it  habitable,"  but  restored  to  the  monks  their  chartered 
lands,  and  even  augmented  them. 

So  these  legendary  fortunes  of  the  Abbey  recurrently  rise 
and  fall,  in  automatic  correspondence  with  the  date  of  a  famous 
king  and  a  subsequent  relapse  into  obscurity.  Thus  after 
Alfred  the  Abbey  fell  on  evil  days,  to  be  again  restored,  this 
time  by  Edgar.  Here  indeed  is  the  second  bit  of  historical  fact 
in  the  long  interval,  the  Charter  of  Edgar  dated  960,  which 
remains  in  the  archives  at  Westminster.  The  monkish 
historians  took  care  to  make  the  most  of  it.  We  hear  much  of 
Edgar's  munificence,  prevailed  on  (it  is  a  notable  point)  by  his 
great  Archbishop  Dunstan.  We  are  told  how  he  repaired  the 
buildings  "and  brought  hither  twelve  monks  of  the  Benedictine 
Order  "  and  gave  to  the  foundation  certain  valuable  estates,  as 
well  as  presents  of  gold.  Dunstan,  too,  gave  gifts  of  money 
and  land,  and  did  himself,  so  one  record  asserts,  preside  over 
the  restored  monastery. 

But  once  more  a  destroying  tide  of  Danes  swept  over  the 
church,  when  in  the  time  of  Ethelred  the  Unready  we  find  that 
it  was  "miserably  havocked."  Needless  to  say,  however,  it 
found  a  friend  again  in  the  next  great  royal  figure  of  our 
history.  Canute,  last  of  the  legendary  benefactors  in  this 
astonishingly  perfect  list,  showed  great  favour  to  the  monastery. 

13 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

He  made  a  friend  of  Wulnoth,  its  Abbot,  whose  name  is  care- 
fully linked  with  Canute  as  Dunstan  was  with  Edgar,  and 
Ordbright  with  Offa.  (It  might  be  necessary  to  prove  to  in- 
different monarchs  in  future  that  the  Monastery  in  the  West 
had  always  been  the  peculiar  care  of  the  Crown.)  So,  in  the 
case  of  Canute  and  Wulnoth,  we  are  told  that  the  King  "  came 
frequently  to  visit  him,  and  consulted  him  on  all  his  affairs, 
allowing  him  the  utmost  freedom  and  familiarity  of  speech,  for 
he  was  a  man  of  singular  sincerity."  The  compliment  that  the 
anecdote  intends  for  Wulnoth  falls  to  the  noble  Dane,  so  we  are 
the  more  grateful  for  it.  But  when  we  are  summing  up  our 
thanks  to  Sporley  for  his  Active  history,  let  us  not  forget  the 
last  and  brightest  gem.  "  On  account  of  Wulnoth,"  he  says, 
"  the  King  willingly  gave  many  holy  relics " ;  and  these 
consisted  of  ait  arm  of  St  Ovias,  some  remains  of  St  Edward 
the  King  and  martyr,  a  finger  of  St  Alphege,  and  a  finger  and 
some  bones  of  St  Gregory.     Priceless  collection  ! 

So  we  leave  this  misty  region,  shot  as  it  is  with  brightly 
coloured  gleams,  enjoying  such  astounding  prosperity  under 
favour  of  Canute.  It  is  a  good  name  to  end  on ;  and  if,  as  is 
quite  possible,  his  famous  rebuke  to  the  courtiers  was  given 
before  the  rising  tide  on  Thorny  strand,  it  was  the  augur  of 
another  and  a  clearer  light  for  the  Minster  in  the  West. 

Maistre  Geffrei  Gaimar,  in  his  Estorie  des  Engles,  tells  the 
story  thus : 

The  tide  flowed  near  the  church, 
Which  was  called  Westminster. 
The  King,  on  foot,  stopped 
On  the  bank,  on  the  sand. 

14 


LIGHT    IN    THE    MIST 

The  tide  rose  quickly, 

It  approached  fast,  it  came  near  the  King. 

Cnut  in  his  hand  held  his  staff. 

He  said  to  the  tide,  "  Turn  back, 

Flee  from  before  me,  lest  I  strike  thee." 

The  sea  did  not  go  back  a  step  for  him  ; 

And  more  and  more  the  tide  rose. 

Hear  what  he  said,  his  folk  listening : 
"  Him  Who  makes  the  sea  rise. 
Men  ought  truly  to  believe  and  worship 
He  is  a  good  King,  I  am  a  poor  one. 
I  am  a  mortal  man,  but  He  is  living ; 
His  command  makes  everything. 
Him  I  pray  to  be  my  Guard." 


15 


CHAPTER  II :  Art  is  Long 

THERE  is  not  visible  in  the  Abbey  a  single  fragment 
of  the  Norman  church  built  by  Edward  the  Confessor. 
It  has  vanished  utterly. 
Glancing  casually  at  that  fact,  one  may  not  be  surprised  at 
it.  In  nine  hundred  years,  we  think,  any  building  made  with 
hands  might  decay  and  disappear.  So  we  accept  unquestioningly 
(we  average  English  of  the  incurious  and  rather  indolent  type  of 
mind)  the  complete  absence  of  Norman  work  within  the  Abbey. 
When,  however,  we  go  and  look  at  what  remains  of  the  old 
monastic  buildings  of  Edward's  time :  when  we  are  told  that 
there  are  beneath  the  floor  of  the  presbytery  three  bases  of  piers 
which  once  supported  the  choir  of  the  ancient  church,  we  begin 
to  wonder.  And  in  presence  of  the  immense  solidity  and 
strength  of  those  remains,  we  break  from  astonishment  to 
question,  and  from  question  to  wrath.  "Why,"  we  demand, 
"  if  the  whole  church  was  built  by  Edward  after  the  manner  of 
these  fragments,  strong  enough  to  last  till  the  day  of  doom, 
why  is  there  nothing  remaining  of  it  ? "  And  the  answer,  that 
Henry  III  pulled  it  down  in  order  to  build  a  finer  one  in  its 
place,  hardly  subdues  our  anger  until  we  hear  that  he  did  it 
out  of  love  and  reverence  for  Edward.  Then  we  smile  at 
incorrigible  human  nature,  and  our  indignation  vanishes. 

We  muse  a  little  on  the  queer  ways  that  humans  have  of 
expressing  their  love  ;  and  upon  the  influence  that  that  particular 
absurdity  has  had  on  the  history  of  the  Abbey.  We  remember 
that  to  make  room  for  the  nave  of  Edward's  building  a  good 
Saxon  church  was  pulled  down — out  of  love  for  St  Peter ;  and 
i6 


ART    IS    LONG 

that  when  Henry  III  had  retaliated  by  demolishing  practically 
the  whole  of  Edward's  vast  work  (to  the  honour  of  Edward), 
Henry  VII  in  due  time  did  away  with  the  old  Lady  Chapel  in 
order  to  build  (for  the  love  of  Henry  VI)  the  chapel  which  is 
called  by  his  name.  What  Henry  VIII  destroyed  (for  the  love 
of  truth)  is  only  too  well  known  and  will  not  bear  repeating ; 
but  what  restoring  deans  and  architects  have  shorn  away,  for 
the  love  of  God  knows  what,  only  they  could  tell.  Yet  kings, 
architects,  and  deans  were  not  the  only  culprits.  Rich  ignorance 
and  poor  arrogance  and  blind  ambition  all  played  their  part, 
calling  to  their  aid  artists  who  were  not  known  of  Art.  And  in 
the  ruck  of  miscellaneous  ugliness  that  we  call  the  monuments 
of  our  Abbey,  there  is  probably  not  one  which,  defacing  the 
gracious  original  beauty,  did  not  do  so  in  the  name  of  love. 

The  converse  of  that  thought  is  of  course  the  more  familiar 
aspect  of  the  truth  ;  and  save  for  the  horror  of  the  monuments, 
it  is  arguable  that  each  new  step  thus  taken  on  the  prostrate 
body  of  a  dead  age  was  an  advance  toward  perfection.  Yet  the 
reflection  is  not  altogether  perverse,  and  we  do  feel  a  certain 
regret  as  we  stand  before  the  imperishable  fragments  of  Edward's 
building,  and  recall  other  existing  Norman  churches  in  England, 
of  which  it  was  the  prototype,  and  which  it  might  have  out- 
lasted. 

The  Norman  remains  are,  indeed,  more  than  fragments. 
If  we  step  out  of  the  south  aisle  into  the  cloisters  and  go  round 
to  the  south-east  corner  and  into  the  Dark  Cloister,  we  find  our- 
selves under  an  arch  and  between  massive  walls  of  Norman 
structure.    They  were  probably  built  soon  after  Edward's  church 

B  17 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

was  finished  in  1066,  and  they  belong  to  the  substructure  of  his 
monastery.  The  dormitory  used  by  the  monks,  and  now  a  part 
of  Westminster  School,  runs  over  it. 

Or,  just  before  passing  into  the  Dark  Cloister,  if  we  turn 
into  a  little  door  on  the  left,  we  shall  find  ourselves  in  the  ancient 
Abbey  treasury,  called  the  Chapel  of  the  Pyx.  This  is  the 
earliest  remaining  bit  of  the  Confessor's  monastic  buildings. 
Here  one  may  note  the  groined  vaulting,  the  huge  round  pillars 
with  capitals  of  early  Norman  design  and  later  Norman  decora- 
tion :  the  widely  splayed  windows  revealing  walls  of  immense 
thickness  ;  and  the  ancient  tiles  which  floor  the  chapel.  We 
observe  also  the  columnar  piscina  of  the  thirteenth  century  ;  and 
the  stone  altar  with  a  circular  depression  in  the  top  where  relics 
were  placed  for  safe-keeping,  closed  down  by  another  stone 
sunken  into  it. 

Again  returning  to  the  Dark  Cloister  and  entering  another 
door  farther  down  on  the  left,  we  shall  find  ourselves  in  the 
Norman  Undercroft,  now  used  as  a  museum  of  Abbey  antiquities. 
This  is  by  far  the  most  impressive  bit  of  the  ancient  work,  with 
its  great  pillars,  its  vast  round  arches,  and  its  thick  walls — the 
whole  massive  and  unadorned  save  for  rudimentary  attempts  at 
carving  on  one  or  two  pillars  and  the  remains  of  early  painting 
on  some  of  the  arches.  The  total  effect  is  one  of  grandeur 
and  dignity  and  indestructible  strength.  One  has  an  almost 
oppressive  sense  of  permanence  :  it  seems  that  this  must  endure, 
unchanging,  for  ever. 

Ars  longa,  indeed,  save  when  man  the  iconoclast  comes 
along  with  his  hammer.  And  to  reconstruct  in  imagination  the 
18 


ART    IS    LONG 

Confessor's  church  we  have  now  to  go  to  another  form  of  art, 
literature :  the  form  which,  quietest  and  subtlest  of  them  all,  is 
perhaps  the  most  enduring.  There  is  a  fascinating  poem  of  the 
thirteenth  century  entitled  La  Estoire  de  Seint  Aidward  le  Rei ; 
and  it  is  dedicated  to  Alianore,  riche  Reme  dEngletere,  i.e. 
Eleanor  of  Provence,  Queen  of  Henry  III.  From  that  poem 
one  gets  a  view  not  only  of  Edward's  church,  but  of  his  life  and 
Court ;  and  of  the  halo  of  sanctity  through  which  after  ages 
regarded  him. 

The  poem  is  in  old  French,  but  a  translation,  and  certain 
data  about  it  are  published  in  the  Rolls  Series.  Its  date  is 
about  1245,  and  its  author  was  probably  an  ecclesiastic  of  West- 
minster. It  is  quite  frankly  a  re-handling  and  translation  of 
older  material  written  down  in  Latin  ;  but  that  material  can  only 
be  described  as  historical  while  remembering  certain  things,  viz., 
that  it  was  first  recorded  by  a  poet,  that  that  poet  was  a  courtier, 
that  his  successor  of  La  Estoire  was  a  monk,  that  this  monk 
was  writing  for  a  great  queen,  and  that  the  subject  on  which  he 
was  engaged  was  the  life  of  the  founder  of  his  own  monastery. 

It  is  a  concatenation  which  promises  much — in  generous 
fancy  and  rich  imagination  and  suave  gloss ;  but  he  who  is  so 
misguided  as  to  require  fact  of  such  a  history  must  not  look  here. 
For  us,  we  will  thank  our  stars  that  we  have  found  a  graceful 
and  lively  poem  ;  and  accepting  joyfully  its  naive  lying,  we  shall 
yet  believe  that  we  can  see  in  it  some  faint  reflection,  haloed  and 
magnified  of  course,  of  that  Edward  who  was  called  Confessor 
because  he  was  "a  martyr  without  blood-letting";  of  him  whom 
we  delight  to  call  the  last  of  our  Saxon  kings — though  he  was 

19 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

half  Norman  by   blood   and   wholly  Norman  in    nurture   and 
sympathy. 

So  we  glance  at  the  poem ;  and  the  first  thing  we  find  is  a 
delicious  bit  of  flattery.  Remember  again  that  our  poet  is 
writing  for  a  Queen,  for  her  who  was  wife  to  that  King  who 
lavished  on  the  Abbey  the  vast  sums  that  he  had  wrung  out  of 
his  people,  in  a  manner  that  we  shall  see  hereafter.  Then  mark 
the  opening  lines  to  the  glory  of  the  kings  of  England  : 

In  the  world  there  is  not, 

(Well  I  dare  say  it  to  you), 

Country,  realm,  or  empire. 

Where  have  been  so  many  kings  good 

And  holy,  as  in  the  island  of  England, 

Who  after  their  earthly  reign 

Now  reign  kings  in  heaven, 

Saints,  martyrs,  and  confessors, 

Of  whom  many  for  God  died. 

Perhaps  we  had  not  realized  how  many  holy  monarchs  we 
had  been  blessed  with  in  these  islands ;  or  perhaps  (I  do  but 
whisper  it)  the  poet  might  not  have  put  the  case  to  us  quite  in 
that  form.  But  well  might  he  put  it  so  to  Alianore,  riche 
Reine  of  Henry  III ;  and  to  her  also  it  would  be  comfortable  to 
know  that  her  husband's  ancestor  Edward  was  anointed  King 
by  no  less  a  person  than  St  Peter  himself.  From  that,  too, 
naturally  follows  Edward's  vow ;  and  his  vow,  made  while  he 
was  an  exiled  youth  in  Normandy,  was  the  seed  from  which  his 
Abbey  sprang. 

Sire  St  Peter  .  .  . 

To  thy  service  I  entirely  give  myself  up. 

And  well  I  vow  to  you  and  promise  you, 

20 


ART    IS    LONG 

When  I  shall  be  of  strength  and  age, 
To  Rome  I  will  make  my  pilgrimage. 

Immediately  upon  the  making  of  this  vow,  a  messenger 
conveniently  arrives  from  England  to  announce  that  Edward 
has  been  elected  King ;  and  soon  after  there  follow  descriptions 
of  him  at  his  Court  in  London.  We  know  that  he  was  of  very 
singular  appearance,  with  his  albino  fairness,  light  eyes,  red 
cheeks,  flowing  hair  and  beard,  almost  white ;  and  his  long, 
delicate  hands.  He  must  have  impressed  very  strongly  the 
imagination  of  his  time,  for  there  are  numerous  picturesque 
stories  about  him,  up  and  down  the  old  records.  And  while 
they  are,  for  the  most  part,  of  the  '  George  Washington '  type, 
stressing  his  undoubted  piety  of  nature,  there  are  one  or  two 
which  are  refreshingly  of  another  kind.  That  one,  for  example, 
which  tells  how  he  cursed  the  peasant  who  one  day  spoiled  his 
hunting — "  By  God  and  His  Mother,  I  will  pay  you  out  for  this  !  " 
— may  very  well  stand  beside  the  other  in  which,  seeing  an 
ugly  little  demon  sitting  upon  the  sacks  of  tax-money,  Edward 
promptly  took  it  for  a  sign,  and  abolished  the  Danegelt.  And 
the  one  in  which  the  fierce  Godwin  falls  dead  at  the  banquet ; 
and  the  King,  suddenly  betrayed  by  his  long-suppressed  hatred 
of  that  murderous  earl,  cries :  "  Remove  me  this  foul  dog ! " 
might  rank  with  another  about  a  thief.  One  feels  that  story, 
indeed,  to  be  full  of  character ;  and  it  is  convincingly  circum- 
stantial. One  day  when  the  King  was  supposed  to  be  sleeping, 
a  servant  entered  and  helped  himself  to  cash  from  the  treasury 
box.  He  was  of  the  lowlier  sort,  and  very  poor :  so  the 
King  made  no  movement,  but  quietly  watched  while  the  man 

21 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

filled  his  pockets,  went  away,  and  returned  for  more.  At  his 
third  entry,  however,  even  Edward's  complaisance  reached  a 
limit.  "  Be  off  with  you  !  "  he  cried  ;  "  and  think  yourself  lucky 
the  chamberlain  did  not  catch  you,  for  he  wouldn't  have  left  you 
a  sou."  No  sooner  had  the  man  decamped  than  the  chamberlain 
returned  and  discovered  the  theft.  He  was  of  course  in  a  great 
rage  and  could  hardly  hide  his  very  unflattering  opinion  of  the 
King's  behaviour.  Why  had  he  not  caught  the  man  ?  Why 
did  he  not  make  him  give  up  the  money  ?  But  Edward  would 
only  answer : 

Hugelin,  no, 
It  was  a  poor  needy  one, 
He  has  more  want  of  it  than  we  ; 
Enough  treasure  has  King  Edward. 

There  is  much  testimony  to  that  particular  aspect  of  the 
Confessor's  character ;  and  one  thinks  that  it  cannot  all  have 
been  invented,  even  by  courtiers  anxious  to  flatter,  or  monks 
delighted  with  what  the  chroniclers  call  the  King's  chastity. 
His  manners,  too,  softened  by  his  upbringing  among  a  more 
civilized  race,  charmed  every  one  : 

Each  one  who  sees  King  Edward 
Is  more  courteous  when  he  leaves  him  ; 
Each  one  receives  there,  each  one  learns 
Moderation,  sense,  and  good  manners. 

His  Court  was  of  courtesy 
The  school  and  of  accomplishments  ; 
Nor  was  there  since  the  time  of  Arthur 
A  king  who  had  such  honour  : 

Who  clothed  the  naked  poor, 

Who  but  Edward  the  holy,  the  gentle  ? 

22 


ART    IS    LONG 

Who  fed  the  hungry 

But  Edward  the  glorious  ? 

Nor  ought  I  pass  over  nor  to  be  silent 
How  gentle  and  debonair  he  was ; 
By  a  history  I  will  prove  it, 
Which  prevents  one  from  forgetting. 

The  temptation  to  repeat  those  histories,  "  which  prevent 
one  from  forgetting,"  is  almost  too  great.  They  are  truly  un- 
forgettable, though  whether  they  are  *  histories  '  may  be  judged 
by  their  bare  enumeration.  There  is  Michael  the  Irish  cripple, 
horribly  twisted  and  contorted,  whom  the  King  carries  on  his 
back  into  the  Abbey,  and  who  is  immediately  made  whole  : 

And  that  people  may  have  remembrance  of  it, 
He  hangs  up  there  on  the  wall  his  stool. 

There  is  the  scrofulous  woman  who,  though  she  is  young 
and  beautiful,  is  foul  and  rotting  with  disease.  Yet  she  is  cured 
at  the  touch  of  Edward's  long  fingers.  And  there  are  no  less 
than  seven  blind  men  who  receive  their  sight  from  the  water  in 
which  the  King  had  washed  those  miraculous  hands. 

Again  there  is  the  legend  of  St  John,  in  the  guise  of  a 
beggar,  receiving  as  alms  from  the  Confessor  a  much-prized  ring ; 
and  sending  it  back  to  him  years  after,  by  two  English  pilgrims 
lost  in  the  Holy  Land.  And  there  are  the  King's  visions,  some- 
times when  he  was  surrounded  by  his  Court,  sometimes  at  the 
Mass,  sometimes  at  table ;  when  he  would  fall  into  a  trance  and 
laugh  strangely,  and  waken  to  prophesy.  Of  these  the  most 
portentous  was  the  Vision  of  the  Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus, 
whom  Edward  saw  turn  over  in  their  sleep,  and  knew  it  for  an 

23 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

evil  augury  to  England.  But  the  most  touching  and  syn:ibolic 
is  that  in  which  Christ  appeared  to  him  in  the  Mass  as  a 
beautiful  child.  One  likes  to  think  of  the  child-like  Edward 
seeing  a  vision  of  his  Master  as  a  little  child ;  and  that,  too, 
when  Godiva,  of  heroic  and  lovely  memory,  was  worshipping 
beside  him.  It  is  one  of  those  stories  which,  whether  fact 
or  not,  is  ideally  and  perfectly  right;  and  when  the  absurd 
old  historian  follows  fussily  to  give  us  proofs  of  it,  not  even 
our  shout  of  laughter  at  his  comical  box  which  sprang  open 
one  day  of  its  own  accord  can  spoil  the  beauty  of  the  symbol. 

But  we  must  return  to  Edward's  vow,  because  on  that  rests 
our  Abbey.  How  was  he,  the  devout  son  of  Holy  Church,  to 
get  over  the  difficulty  that  now  presented  itself  to  him  ?  For 
his  people,  in  due  assembly  met  together,  refused  to  allow  him 
to  risk  the  dangers  of  a  journey  to  Rome.  However,  if  one 
is  a  king,  one  may  hope  for  a  way  out,  even  from  a  difficulty 
with  Holy  Church  :  though  to  be  sure  it  will  cost  a  good  deal. 
And  the  price  in  this  case  was  to  be  the  rebuilding  of  the 
Monastery  in  the  West. 

Certain  bishops  had  been  sent  to  Rome  with  a  letter  from 
Edward  to  Pope  Leo  IX,  to  beg  for  release  from  his  vow ; 
and  the  Pope  gave  dispensation  on  condition 

That  an  Abbey  which  is  destroyed 
He  restore,  or  build  one  entirely, 
To  the  praise  and  glory  of  God, 
And  to  the  memory  of  St  Peter. 

So  far  so  good ;  but  the  answer  did  not  specify  which  Abbey 
must  be  restored.  Here  was  another  difficulty ;  yet  even  a 
24 


ART    IS    LONG 

question  like  that  is  not  insoluble,  if  one  is  well  provided 
with  hermits  and  others  whose  business  it  is  to  see  convenient 
visions.  And  the  eleventh  century  did  not  lack  for  those  helpful 
functionaries.  So  at  the  critical  moment  one  of  them  had  a 
visit  from  St  Peter,  who  gave  him  these  most  explicit  directions, 
which  he  in  turn  conveyed  to  the  King : 

At  London  is  the  spot  marked  out, 
Two  leagues  from  the  city, 
Thorny,  where  is  a  church 
Ancient  and  situated  low. 

Here  at  last  we  return  to  the  little  ruined  Abbey  which  we 
have  lost  sight  of  since  we  saw  it  flourishing  so  bravely  (by  favour 
of  Sporley)  under  Canute.  That  a  monastic  house  of  some  kind 
still  remained  here  seems  certain,  and  the  existence  of  the  Saxon 
church  on  the  spot  can  indeed  be  traced  back  to  at  least 
A.D.  750.  But  whether  it  was  so  prosperous  in  the  comparatively 
recent  time  of  Canute  is  very  doubtful.  Stow  has  a  charming 
passage  describing  it  that  he  quotes  from  a  certain  T.  Clifford  ; 
but  it  appears  to  be  a  translation  of  some  lines  on  page  23 
of  the  Harleian  MS.  Life  of  Edward  : 

Without  the  walles  of  London  uppon  the  River  of  Thames,  there  was 
in  times  passed  a  little  Monasterie,  builded  to  the  honor  of  God,  and 
St  Peter,  with  a  few  Benedict  Monkes  in  it,  under  an  Abbotte  servinsf 
Christ :  very  poore  they  were,  and  little  was  given  them  for  their  reliefe, 
here  the  King  intended  (for  that  it  was  neere  to  the  famous  citie  of 
London  and  the  River  of  Thames,  that  brought  in  all  kind  of  Marchan- 
dizes  from  all  partes  of  the  worlde)  to  make  his  Sepulcher,  he  commanded 
therefore  that  of  the  tenthes  of  all  his  rentes,  the  worke  should  be  begunne 
in  such  sort  as  should  become  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles. 

25 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

That  Edward  certainly  made  a  worthy  offering  to  his  patron 
saint  is  evident  from  the  massive  remains  of  it,  mentioned  above, 
that  may  still  be  seen.  But  there  is  other  testimony  to  it. 
A  representation  of  the  church  was  worked  into  the  Bayeux 
tapestry  ;  and  a  contemporary  account  of  it,  written  earlier  than 
1074,  describes  the  building  as  the  writer  saw  it.  In  addition  to 
which  there  is  the  poetical  description  of  it  by  the  author 
of  La  Estoire  de  Seint  Aidward  which  we  shall  presently 
see. 

The  church  was  begun  in  1055 ;  and  its  design  is  ascribed 
to  various  models — to  Saint-Martin  at  Tours,  to  Jumieges,  and 
to  Saint-Trinitd,  Caen.  There  was  nothing  like  it  before  in  this 
country  ;  and  whatever  its  model,  it  is  clear  that  it  was  built 
in  that  Romanesque  style  which,  in  its  English  adaptation, 
we  call  Norman.  Yet,  even  as  it  was  so  important  an  event 
in  English  architecture,  so  it  was  a  great  advance  upon  the 
churches  in  Normandy  which  must  have  given  Edward  its 
general  design. 

We  have  seen  that  Edward  appropriated  one-tenth  of  his 
revenues  to  the  reconstruction  of  the  Abbey ;  and  as  one  comes 
to  realize  the  plan  of  his  work,  its  vast  extent,  massive  con- 
struction, and  comprehensive  character,  one  does  not  wonder 
at  its  great  cost.  The  account  of  it  in  La  Estoire  gives  the 
clearest  idea  of  the  complete  work,  as  it  was  seen  by  the 
writer  of  the  poem  about  1 245  : 

Now  he  laid  the  foundations  of  the  church 
With  large  square  blocks  of  grey  stone  ; 
Its  foundations  are  deep, 
The  front  towards  the  east  he  makes  round, 

26 


ART    IS    LONG 

The  stones  are  ver)'  strong  and  hard, 

In  the  centre  rises  a  tower, 

And  two  at  the  western  front, 

And  fine  and  large  bells  he  hangs  there, 

The  pillars  and  entablature 

And  rich  without  and  within, 

At  the  bases  and  capitals, 

The  work  rises  grand  and  royal, 

Sculptured  are  the  stones 

And  storied  the  windows. 

All  are  made  witli  the  skill 

Of  a  good  and  loyal  workmanship  ; 

And  when  he  finished  the  work, 

With  lead  the  church  completely  he  covers, 

He  makes  there  a  cloister,  a  chapter-house  in  front, 

Towards  the  east,  vaulted  and  round. 

Where  his  ordained  ministers 

May  hold  their  secret  chapter ; 

Refectory  and  dormitory. 

And  the  ofl'ices  in  the  tower. 

All  that  vast  work,  however,  was  not  finished  during 
Edward's  lifetime.  It  is  a  description  of  the  whole  monastic 
pile  as  it  still  stood  two  centuries  later,  before  Henry  III  began 
to  pull  it  down.  It  was,  however,  completed  to  Edward's  scale 
and  from  his  plan ;  and  the  part  which  he  accomplished  was  no 
mean  life-work.  For  the  description  of  that  we  have  the  con- 
temporary account,  which  must  have  been  written  before  1074, 
because  it  was  addressed  to  Queen  Edith,  and  in  that  year  she 
died.  From  this  statement,  and  from  measurements  given  by 
the  three  bases  of  Norman  piers  remaining  under  the  floor  of 
the  presbytery,  together  with  other  fragments  of  sound  evidence, 
architects  of  the  Abbey  have  been  able  to  reconstruct  the  original 
plan.     They  find  that  it  was  a  large  cross  church,  running  east 

27 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

and  west,  with  a  rounded  apse  to  the  east,  north  and  south 
transepts,  and  a  central  tower  rising  over  the  middle  of  the 
choir.  The  crossing  and  apse  were  where  they  stand  now  ;  and 
the  transepts  were  only  a  very  little  shorter  :  in  fact,  the  centre 
line  of  Edward's  church  was  the  same  as  the  present  one.  He 
began  his  building  to  the  east  of  the  earlier  Saxon  church,  which 
probably  continued  in  use  by  the  monks  until  the  new  one  was 
ready.  It  was  then  connected  with  the  new  church,  and  may 
have  served  as  its  nave  for  some  years,  until  it  was  pulled  down 
and  a  Norman  nave  built  to  correspond  with  the  choir. 

Ten  years  after  Edward  began  his  Abbey  the  work  was 
sufficiently  advanced  for  consecration.  The  wonderful  new 
cross  church,  that  is  to  say,  the  choir,  transepts,  and  central 
tower,  were  finished.  The  King's  supreme  object  was  accom- 
plished, so  far  as  might  be  in  one  man's  life ;  and  now  he  was 
anxious  only  to  live  long  enough  for  the  dedication  ceremony. 
He  knew  that  he  must  soon  die,  for  had  it  not  been  revealed  to 
him  by  those  two  palmers  from  the  Holy  Land?  They  had 
been  charged  by  St  John,  sending  the  ring  as  a  token,  to  warn 
him  of  his  approaching  end  : 

And  let  King  Edward  know  well, 

To  me  he  shall  come  before  six  months  (are  over), 

And  since  he  resembles  me, 

In  Paradise  shall  we  be  together. 

The  six  months  were  drawing  out,  Christmastide  was  near, 
and  the  new  church  was  all  but  ready. 

Then  he  bids  all  his  people 

In  common  throughout  the  kingdom, 

28 


ART    IS    LONG 

That  at  Christmas  they  come  to  Westminster, 
And  there  with  him  keep  the  feast. 

But,  alas !  on  Christmas  Day  in  the  evening  he  fell  sick ; 
and  though  he  made  a  great  effort  to  fulfil  his  duties  as  host  at 
the  festivities  of  the  succeeding  two  days,  he  grew  so  much 
worse  that,  in  hope  to  outwit  Fate,  the  date  for  the  consecration 
was  put  forward  to  Childermas  Day,  the  28th  of  December, 
1065.  The  alteration  was  in  vain,  however.  The  King  had 
made  all  the  arrangements,  had  prepared  rich  gifts  and  gathered 
many  holy  relics  with  which  to  endow  his  church.  That  day 
when  he  should  preside  at  its  dedication  was  to  be  the  crown 
of  a  career  by  no  means  unworthy  of  such  a  consummation. 
Yet  he  did  not  preside,  and  was  not  even  present  at  the 
ceremony : 

On  the  fourth  day,  which  was  that  of  the  Innocents, 

The  prelates  come,  the  chiefs  come. 

To  furnish  whatever  appertains 

To  so  great  a  dedication. 

The  King  forces  himself  to  come  there, 

Since  for  it  he  had  a  great  longing  ; 

But  so  weak  and  ill  is  he, 

So  much  doubt  has  his  head  and  feebleness  has  his  heart, 

He  cannot  be,  according  to  his  wish. 

Present,  which  much  afflicts  him. 

All  that  he  could  do,  with  difficulty,  was  to  sign  the  Charter  of 
the  Foundation.  It  was  Edith  the  Queen  who  presided  at  the 
dedication  of  the  church  ;  and  not  many  days  afterward  she 
buried  there  the  man  who  had  built  it.  For  Edward  died  on 
the  4th  or  5th  of  January,  and  in  dying  laid  a  charge  on  those 
about  him : 

29 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

In  the  church  of  Saint  Peter,  to  whom 
Of  old  I  made  my  vow,  let  me  be  buried. 


And  Saint  Peter,  his  dear  friend, 
Opens  the  gate  of  Paradise, 
And  Saint  John,  his  own  dear  one, 
Conducts  him  before  the  Majesty, 
And  God  gives  him  his  kingdom, 
Who  puts  the  crown  on  his  head. 

So  Edward  the  good  King,  who,  according  to  another  early 
historian,  made  such  laws  as  England  never  yet  had  known,  was 
buried  before  the  altar  of  his  church.  His  bones  became  its 
central  relic,  as  they  remain  its  most  precious  possession.  After 
several  translations  they  came  to  rest  at  last  in  the  Shrine  of 
St  Edward  behind  the  high  altar,  which  is  the  Holy  of  Holies 
of  our  present  Abbey.  In  1163  Edward  was  canonized  by  Pope 
Alexander  H;  and  at  that  date  his  body,  seen  twice  in  the 
intervening  time,  was  again  found  to  be  in  perfect  preservation. 
Miracles  were  performed  at  his  tomb ;  and  it  became,  as  indeed 
it  is  to  this  day,  a  place  of  pilgrimage. 

At  the  little  town  of  Islip,  in  Oxfordshire,  where  Edward 
was  born,  nothing  remains  of  him.  A  destroying  Fate  has  been 
busy  with  his  home,  no  less  than  with  his  Abbey.  His  palace 
has  vanished  :  not  a  stone  of  it  is  left.  The  chapel,  which 
lingered  in  a  degraded  condition  until  the  eighteenth  century, 
was  then  swept  blindly  away ;  and  the  very  font  in  which  he 
is  doubtfully  said  to  have  been  christened  has  found  its  way 
by  a  devious  route  into  a  distant  parish. 

Nothing  tangible  remains  of  Edward  there ;  and  yet  the 
30 


ART    IS    LONG 

sweet  English  landscape  is  eloquent  of  him.  Its  gentleness, 
its  peace,  the  frank  smiling  sky,  the  green  spaces,  the  softly 
sloping  meadows,  the  grace  of  the  curving  river,  the  cry  of  the 
wildfowl,  and  the  free  rush  of  the  wind  through  the  willows — 
all  these  things  sing  of  his  spirit.  And  if  his  body  rests  at 
Westminster  it  is  certain  that  his  shade  goes  happily  hunting 
over  Oxfordshire  fields. 


31 


CHAPTER  III :  Long  Live  the  King! 

THE  Abbey  that  we  know  to-day  is  substantially  the 
achievement  of  Henry  HI  and  his  workmen.  We 
shall  salute  the  workmen  presently ;  but  for  the 
moment  the  fact  to  consider  is  that  the  whole  of  this  vast 
edifice  (except  the  Lady  Chapel  of  Henry  VH,  the  western  end, 
and  one  or  two  minor  features)  came  into  being  at  the 
command  of  this  artist-king,  who  apparently  was  no  campaigner, 
who  enraged  the  Court  by  his  favour  to  foreigners  and  the 
hard-working  citizens  of  London  by  his  extravagance,  who  by 
most  accounts  was  weak,  fickle,  and  choleric  ;  yet  who  at  least 
did  know  how  to  worship  God  and  Beauty. 

The  Norman  Abbey  had  grown  out  of  Edward  and  his 
age,  fruit  of  the  union  of  French  ideas  and  English  vigour. 
It  was  a  thing  new  and  wonderful  to  English  eyes ;  and  even 
to  the  more  critical  and  accustomed  French  eye  it  proudly 
showed  how  the  island  builders  could  adapt  and  advance  upon 
their  models. 

In  like  manner  the  present  Abbey  grew  out  of  Henry  III 
and  his  age.  It  reflects  in  a  hundred  ways  his  character.  The 
best  that  was  in  him  is  there,  from  his  profoundly  religious 
temper  and  his  hero-worship  of  Edward,  right  through  the 
gamut  of  artistic  sensibility,  trained  judgment,  and  fastidious 
taste.  And  just  because  the  Abbey  does  so  faithfully  embody 
and  perpetuate  Henry,  it  is,  so  to  speak,  the  spirit  of  that  age 
made  visible  to  us  at  this  day.  For  Henry  might  fairly  stand 
as  a  symbol  of  English  medieval  life  when  it  reached,  as  it  did 
in  his  reign,  its  fullest  and  most  characteristic  development. 
32 


LONG    LIVE    THE    KING! 

He  stands  for  that  life  both  in  its  strength  and  weakness.  In 
politics,  in  statesmanship,  in  arms,  the  time  was  poor,  and 
Henry  reflected  the  poverty  of  it :  indeed,  he  was  largely  its 
cause.  But  in  the  things  of  the  spirit — religion,  art,  ideas, 
learning,  manners — it  was  an  age  of  full  and  joyous  life, 
with  Henry  well  ahead  of  it,  leading  in  a  real  and  royal 
sense. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Henry  III  came  to  the  throne 
as  a  child  of  nine  in  the  year  1216.  Through  the  treachery  of 
his  infamous  father  John,  London  was  at  that  date  in  the 
hands  of  the  French,  so  the  small  boy  was  perforce  crowned 
at  Gloucester ;  but  he  was  afterward  crowned  for  a  second 
time  in  the  Abbey,  in  1220.  Now  the  day  before  that  second 
coronation,  that  is  to  say,  at  a  time  when  he  was  still  a  child, 
he  had  laid  the  first  stone  of  a  new  Lady  Chapel  planned  to 
the  east  of  the  Confessor's  church ;  and  it  would  be  romantic 
and  poetical  to  think  of  the  boy-king  consciously  dedicating 
himself  thus  early  to  his  great  work  of  rebuilding  the  Abbey. 
That  would  be  pure  imagination,  however,  for  the  truth  seems 
to  be  that  the  growing  cult  of  the  Virgin  about  this  time 
made  a  new  chapel  necessary,  and  the  presiding  Abbot  of  the 
time  had  decided  to  build  it.  Perhaps  it  was  required  as  a 
repository  for  those  amazing  relics  of  the  Virgin,  solicitously 
provided  by  Edward  among  a  small  cemetery  of  the  bones  of 
minor  saints  : 

Many  pieces  of  the  vestments  of  the  Virgin  Mary ;  of  the  linen 
which  she  wore ;  of  the  window  in  which  the  angel  stood  when  he 
saluted  her  ;    of  her  milk  ;    of  her  hair  ;  of  her  shoes  and  of  her  bed ; 

c  33 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

also  of  the  girdle  which  she  worked  with  her  own  hands,  always  wore, 
and  dropped  to  St  Thomas  the  Apostle  at  her  Assumption. 

Yet  the  bent  of  Henry's  mind  did  in  fact  reveal  itself  at 
his  coronation,  for  it  was  then  that  he  put  the  question  to 
Grosseteste,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  as  to  what  was  the  special 
grace  that  a  king  received  in  the  unction — a  question  that  others 
besides  the  famous  scholar  and  theologian  have  found  it  difficult 
to  answer.  But  it  was  not  until  twenty  years  afterward  that 
he  began  to  think  constructively  about  the  Abbey.  He  had 
always  been  powerfully  attracted  by  the  memory  of  Edward 
the  Confessor,  and  had  placed  himself,  after  the  custom  of  the 
time,  under  the  special  protection  of  that  saint.  In  1241  he 
conceived  the  idea  of  honouring  his  patron  by  making  a 
magnificent  shrine  to  contain  his  tomb.  This  he  designed 
to  stand  east  of  the  high  altar,  raised  so  high  and  made  so 
splendid  that  every  worshipper  looking  toward  the  Holy  Place 
should  be  exalted  by  the  glory  of  it. 

It  happened  that  in  that  very  year  St  Louis  of  France 
began  to  build  his  exquisite  Sainte-Chapelle ;  but  whether  his 
example  fired  Henry  or  Henry's  fired  him,  or  whether  the 
idea  originated  independently  in  the  mind  of  each  (as  it  very 
well  might  do,  seeing  the  spiritual  kinship  between  the  two 
men),  matters  hardly  at  all.  The  truth  remains  that  the  intense 
religious  feeling  of  the  age  craved  to  express  itself  in  art,  that 
everywhere  a  joyful  perception  of  Beauty  was  stirring,  and  a 
desire  to  render  it  into  rich  colour,  fine  texture,  precious 
substance,  and  great  shapely  architectural  form.  Such  ideas 
were  in  the  air  of  Europe,  and  flourished  in  the  free  intercourse 
34 


LONG    LIVE    THE    KING! 

between  France  and  England.  They  were  focused  in  the 
minds  of  the  two  Kings,  and  were  by  them  directed  and  made 
articulate. 

At  first  Henry's  purpose  seems  to  have  been  simply  the 
building  of  the  golden  shrine ;  but  his  ardour  and  ambition 
rapidly  grew.  Architecture  was  his  chief  delight ;  and  not 
content  with  large  works  at  the  royal  palaces,  he  soon  determined 
upon  a  project  to  demolish  the  Confessor's  Abbey  and  build 
another  in  its  place.  In  1243  he  began  the  preparatory  work, 
necessarily  great  for  so  vast  an  undertaking;  and  in  1245  the 
old  chronicler  Matthew  Paris  has  this  entry  : 

In  the  same  year  the  King,  inspired  by  the  devotion  which  he  felt 
toward  St  Edward,  ordered  the  church  of  St  Peter,  at  Westminster,  to  be 
enlarged.  He  therefore  caused  the  old  walls,  with  the  tower  on  the 
eastern  side,  to  be  pulled  down  and  new  and  handsome  ones  to  be  erected 
by  clever  architects  at  his  own  expense,  and  the  remainder  of  the  building 
on  the  western  side  to  be  altered  to  suit  the  other. 

Passing  over  the  quaintness  of  an  inspiration  which 
demanded  the  destruction  of  the  noble  old  building,  glance  for  a 
moment  at  the  other  point  of  interest  in  the  record,  viz.,  that 
the  new  church  was  to  be  erected  at  the  King's  expense.  Its 
undesigned  ironic  humour  is  delicious.  For  a  king  who  was  as 
careless  of  the  value  of  money  as  a  babe,  and  who  lived  literally 
in  poverty  because  he  could  not  keep  a  penny  in  his  treasury  for 
a  single  day :  who  lavished  his  possessions  (not  to  speak  of 
things  that  he  did  not  possess)  on  every  individual  who  caught 
his  exuberant  fancy :  who  had  immense  undertakings  already 
that  he  could  not  pay  for,  and  was  well  on  the  road  to  exhausting 

35 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

his  people's  patience  at  his  impudent  exactions — the  project  to 
build  yet  another  great  fabric  "at  his  own  expense"  was  some- 
thing of  an  adventure.  It  may  savour  of  romance  to  the 
romantic ;  but  to  the  comic  eye  it  has  the  look  of  a  jest. 
Matthew  Paris  himself,  innocent  and  all  but  impartial,  is  witness 
to  the  King's  prodigality  as  he  is  to  his  measureless  charity. 
Over  and  over  again  we  are  told  of  demands  on  the  nobles  for 
great  part  of  "  all  their  moveable  property,"  which  they  would 
concede  only  after  a  struggle,  and  "  on  terms,"  Henry  humbly 
promising  that  it  should  not  happen  any  more.  Over  and  over 
again  we  hear  of  extortion  from  the  citizens  of  London  (in  their 
case,  of  course,  with  no  terms  demanded  or  given) ;  of  the 
appropriation  of  talliage  due  to  the  Pope,  and  of  the  seizure  of 
Jewish  property  ;  and  all  this  interspersed  with  bitter  plaints 
by  the  King  of  England  of  his  poverty,  and  icy  comments  of 
the  historian  upon  the  diminution  of  the  royal  state. 

It  has  very  much  the  air  of  comedy,  especially  when  the 
King,  fertile  in  ruse  and  subtlety,  is  further  inspired  to  shut  up 
all  the  fairs  in  England  and  all  the  shops  in  London,  and  compel 
the  citizens  to  make  a  great  fair  outside  the  Abbey  walls  for  the 
benefit  of  that  building  fund  which  he  was  to  provide  "at  his 
own  expense."  This  he  ordered  to  be  held  at  Tut-hill  (now 
Tothill  Fields),  for  fifteen  days  at  St  Edward's  Tide  in  1248. 
So  the  fair  began  toward  the  end  of  September,  and  continued 
over  the  Feast  of  the  Translation  of  St  Edward.  Reading 
contemporary  accounts  of  it  with  a  modern  eye,  one  sees  it 
as  a  great  thirteenth-century  church  bazaar,  ominous  fore- 
runner of  a  myriad  others  of  like  origin  and  import — except 
36 


LONG    LIVE    THE    KING! 

that,  in  addition  to  resentful  and  unhappy  buyers,  this  first 
of  its  kind  had  exasperated  sellers  too,  and  all  alike  made 
miserable  by  the  cold  storms  of  an  inclement  Michaelmas. 
Says  Matthew  Paris : 

But  all  the  merchants  .  .  .  were  exposed  to  great  inconveniences.  .  .  . 
They  were  cold  and  wet  and  also  suffered  from  hunger  and  thirst ;  their 
feet  were  soiled  by  the  mud  and  their  goods  rotted  by  the  showers  of 
rain  ;  and  when  they  sat  down  to  take  meals  there,  those  who  were 
accustomed  to  take  meals  in  the  midst  of  their  family  by  the  fireside 
knew  not  how  to  endure  this  state  of  want  and  discomfort. 

Yet  the  Fair  must  have  been  a  success  from  Henry's  point 
of  view,  for  when  in  1252  he  was  again  in  desperate  straits  for 
money,  we  find  that  he  ordered  St  Edward's  Fair  to  be  held 
once  more. 

Which  thing  (by  reason  of  the  foule  weather  chauncing  at  that  time) 
was  verie  grieuous  vnto  them,  albeit  there  was  such  repayre  of  people 
thither,  that  London  had  not  bene  fuller  to  the  iudgment  of  olde  auncient 
men  neuer  at  any  tyme  in  theyr  dayes  to  theyr  remembraunce. 

— Thus  Holinshed. 

A  business  man,  this  artist-Henry :  he  knew  very  well 
how  to  make  the  people  flock  to  his  fair  and  provide  money  for 
his  church.  By  hook  or  by  crook,  by  fair  means  and  foul 
(though  mostly  foul,  it  would  appear),  he  succeeded  in  raising  a 
total  sum  equivalent  to  ;^75o,ooo  of  our  money  for  the  building 
of  the  Abbey.  Endless  were  his  difficulties,  but  his  ingenuity 
was  endless  too.  Now  we  find  him  cajoling  Abbot  Crokesley 
(a  man  he  detested)  to  sign  a  bond  with  the  conventual  seal  for 
2500  marks ;    and  at  another  time  he  is  pawning  to  the  hated 

37 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

London  merchants  "the  shrines  of  saints  and  other  jewels  and 
relics  of  the  Church  of  Westminster." 

The  satiric  mind  will  see  much  to  smile  over  in  these 
old  records,  especially  remembering  those  very  loyal  modern 
historians  of  the  Abbey  who  insist  on  its  having  been  a  gift 
from  the  King  to  the  nation.  It  is  all  very  well  to  laugh,  how- 
ever, from  this  safe  distance ;  just  as  we  could,  from  another 
point  of  view,  regard  with  astonished  admiration  the  King's 
tireless  determined  effort  to  gain  his  end,  and  the  way  in  which 
the  agility  of  his  mind  matched  and  supplemented  the  concen- 
tration of  his  will.  But  the  exasperated  London  merchants,  the 
nobles,  the  wronged  Jews,  and  the  irate  Pope  could  not  be 
expected  either  to  laugh  or  admire :  the  thing  was  neither 
comical  nor  heroic  to  them  ;  but  simply  an  abominable  tyranny. 

Nevertheless,  all  praise  and  thanks  to  Henry  III  for  the 
eye  which  could  see  Beauty,  for  the  mind  which  could  conceive 
a  great  design,  and  for  the  passionate  determination  which 
could  carry  it  through.  Praise  also  for  the  honour  that  he 
paid  to  letters,  for  his  love  and  care  for  all  the  arts,  for  his 
fostering  of  genius,  and  last,  not  least,  his  friendly  appreciation 
and  encouragement  of  his  workmen. 

There  is  not  space  to  begin  to  tell  all  the  stories  about 
Henry ;  but  there  is  one  which  it  is  necessary  to  give,  if  there 
is  to  be  any  balance  in  our  picture  of  his  character.  It  is 
deeply  significant,  and  at  the  same  time  of  first  interest  in 
the  history  of  the  Abbey.  It  is  that  act  of  the  Carrying  of  the 
Relic  which,  however  much  a  satiric  imp  may  poke  a  gibing 
finger  and  cry  '  theatrical,'  remains  profoundly  symbolic. 
38 


LONG    LIVE    THE    KING! 

Henry's  religious  feeling  was  intense  and  sincere.  It  is 
illustrated  in  a  dozen  ways — his  boundless  charity,  the  devotion 
that  led  him  to  the  Mass  as  much  as  four  or  five  times  a  day, 
the  penitence  and  humiliation  that  would  follow  upon  a  fault, 
and  the  personal  sacrifice  that  he  undoubtedly  made  to  provide 
rich  gifts  for  his  church.  Toward  the  year  1247  he  had 
succeeded  in  procuring  for  the  new  Abbey  a  supremely  sacred 
relic,  some  drops  of  the  Holy  Blood,  which  were  said  to  have 
trickled  from  the  side  of  the  Saviour  at  His  crucifixion.  The 
relic  had  been  sent  to  Henry,  very  elaborately  vouched  for,  by 
the  Master  of  the  Templars  and  Hospitallers.  Enclosed  in  a 
handsome  crystalline  vessel,  the  King  carried  it  in  his  own 
hands  from  St  Paul's  to  the  Abbey,  and  there  deposited  it,  on 
the  Feast  of  St  Edward  in  1247. 

On  the  eve  of  St  Edward's  Feast  Henry  always  kept  vigil 
in  devout  prayer,  fasting  on  bread  and  water  and  clothed  in  a 
rough  woollen  garment.  On  this  occasion  he  prepared  himself 
with  especial  solemnity  ;  and  on  the  following  morning  he  bade 
all  the  priests  to  assemble  at  St  Paul's,  dressed  in  holiday  attire. 
Hear  Matthew  Paris  : 

Thither  the  King  also  went,  and  receiving  the  vessel  containing  the 
aforesaid  treasures  vi^ith  the  greatest  honour,  reverence  and  awe,  he 
carried  it  above  his  head  publicly  going  on  foot  and  wearing  an  humble 
dress,  consisting  of  a  poor  cloak  without  a  hood,  and  preceded  by  the 
priests  clad  as  aforesaid,  proceeded  without  stopping  to  the  church  at 
Westminster,  which  is  about  a  mile  distant  from  St  Paul's  Church.  Nor 
should  it  be  omitted  to  be  mentioned,  that  he  carried  it  with  both  hands 
when  he  came  to  any  rugged  or  uneven  part  of  the  road,  but  always  kept 
his  eyes  fixed  on  heaven  or  on  the  vessel  itself.     The  pall  was  borne  on 

39 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

four  spears ;  and  two  assistants  supported  the  King's  arms  lest  his 
strength  should  fail  in  such  a  great  effort.  .  .  .  Unweariedly  carrying 
the  vessel,  he  made  the  circuit  of  the  church,  the  palace,  and  his 
own  chambers.  Finally  he  presented  and  made  an  offer  of  it  as 
a  priceless  gift  and  one  which  had  made  England  illustrious,  to 
God,  the  Church  of  St  Peter  at  Westminster,  to  his  beloved  Edward, 
and  the  holy  brethren  who  at  that  place  minister  to  God  and  His 
saints. 

So  Henry  obtained  for  his  church  a  precious  relic,  as  St 
Louis  had  procured  for  his  Sainte-Chapelle  the  Crown  of 
Thorns.  Louis's  chapel,  begun  in  1241,  was  now  well 
advanced  ;  and  whether  or  not  Henry's  originating  idea  of  the 
Abbey  was  derived  from  Louis,  it  is  evident  that  there  is  an 
architectural  relation  between  the  two  churches.  French 
influence  is  indeed  so  strong  at  Westminster  that  we  must 
conclude  either  that  a  French  architect  was  responsible  for  the 
design,  or  that  an  English  architect  was  sent  to  France  to 
study  the  great  models  on  the  spot.  The  latter  theory  was 
accepted  until  quite  recently,  and  a  supposed  visit  of  this 
Englishman  to  Rheims  was  held  to  account  for  the  particularly 
strong  resemblance  of  the  Abbey  to  that  cathedral. 

The  era  was,  as  we  know,  one  of  very  great  development 
in  French  Gothic  architecture,  whereas  our  own  Gothic  art  of 
that  period  had  been  checked  in  its  growth  by  the  Barons' 
Wars.  To  mention  only  the  most  famous  cathedrals,  the 
choir  of  Rheims  had  been  commenced  in  121 1;  Amiens  nave 
was  begun  in  1220  ;  and  Cologne  (which  is  French  Gothic  too, 
and,  as  some  think,  its  apogee)  in  1248.  We  know,  too,  that 
Henry  was  in  close  touch  with  France  and  knew  it  well.  He 
40 


wm^ 


2^-"^::^ 


LONG    LIVE    THE    KING! 

must  have  been  familiar  with  those  noble  examples  of  earlier 
French  Gothic  at  Paris,  the  choir  of  Saint-Denis,  finished  in 
1 144,  and  Notre-Dame,  which  had  been  consecrated  in  1182. 

Henry's  accessibility  to  ideas  and  ready  perception  of 
excellence  make  it  extremely  likely  that  he  decided  deliberately 
to  copy  the  style  of  the  new  French  work ;  and  his  habit  of 
'taking  his  own  wherever  he  found  it,'  would  in  all  probability 
lead  him  to  invite  a  successful  French  artist  to  come  to  London 
for  the  purpose  of  planning  his  own  projected  building.  That 
this  is  what  in  fact  did  happen  seems  to  have  been  proved 
by  the  Rev.  H.  F.  Westlake,  the  Custodian  of  the  Abbey. 
For  Mr  Westlake  has  found  in  ttie  Great  Chartulary  of  the 
Abbey,  commonly  called  Domesday,  an  entry  which  speaks  of 
Master  Henry  the  Mason  as  Henry  de  Reyns,  the  latter  being 
the  common  contemporary  spelling  of  Rheims. 

This  Master  Henry,  whose  place  of  origin  was  hitherto 
unknown,  was  always  supposed  to  have  been  an  Englishman 
by  Abbey  historians  prior  to  Mr  Westlake  ;  and  this  not  merely 
from  motives  of  patriotism,  but  because  the  acknowledged 
French  design  had  somehow  acquired  a  definitely  English 
character.  It  seems  quite  obvious  at  this  time  of  day  that  that 
Englishing,  the  native  distinction  imposed  on  the  foreign  idea, 
must  have  been  wrought  by  Henry's  workmen,  who  were  no 
mean  artists  themselves,  but  able  coadjutors  of  the  French 
master.  And  the  fact  that  the  first  architect  was  always  called 
simply  Master  Henry,  and  was  for  many  centuries  supposed 
to  be  English,  suggests  that  he  too  became  largely  subdued 
to   his   environment.     So  that   the   combination   occurs   again 

41 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

as  it  occurred  in  the  Confessor's  building,  of  French  design 
modified  and  invigorated  by  the  Enghsh  executant.  Almost 
identical  causes  were  at  work — a  pious,  receptive,  art-loving 
monarch  in  free  intercourse  with  Continental  ideas ;  and  thus 
it  is  possible  for  the  expert  to  declare,  as  Mr  Francis  Bond 
does,  that  the  Confessor's  church  was  "the  first  landmark 
of  Anglo-Norman  architecture "  ;  and  of  Henry's  church : 
"In  Westminster  are  blended  all  that  is  best  in  French  and 
all  that  is  best  in  English  Gothic."  So  happy  the  issue, 
apparently,  when  nations  are  thus  members  one  of  another. 

The  discovery  that  Master  Henry  was  of  Rheims  squares 
with  the  observed  resemblances  between  that  cathedral  and 
Westminster.  Although  there  are  features  of  the  Abbey  which 
are  reminiscent  of  the  Sainte-Chapelle  and  of  Amiens,  it  is  so 
much  more  like  Rheims  (or  as  the  cathedral  was  before  its  evil 
fate  in  the  late  War)  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  a  close 
relationship  between  the  two.  The  fact  will  always  now  be  of 
mournful  interest,  even  if  the  French  succeed  in  their  gallant 
attempt  to  reconstruct  Rheims,  which  they  say  it  is  possible  to 
do  in  accurate  inch  by  inch,  so  detailed  are  the  plans  of  the 
cathedral  which  the  authorities  possess.  But  before  Master 
Henry's  identity  was  discovered,  the  Abbey  surveyor,  Professor 
Lethaby,  had  judged  that  Rheims  was  the  specific  type  followed 
at  Westminster  ;  and  the  fact  that  it  also  was  a  coronation 
church  no  doubt  influenced  Henry  III  in  his  selection  of  its 
architect. 

The  most  important  similarity  of  plan  is  in  the  position  of 
the  crossing.  It  will  be  remembered  that  at  Westminster  the 
42 


LONG    LIVE    THE    KING! 

choir  extends  to  the  west  of  the  crossing  and  includes  a  part 
of  the  nave.  The  same  feature  occurs  at  Rheims,  with  the 
further  curious  fact  that  it  is  singular  in  that  respect  among 
the  Gothic  churches  of  France,  as  Westminster  is  singular  in 
English  thirteenth-century  architecture.  From  this  follows  the 
further  characteristic  of  the  shortness  of  the  eastern  end  of  the 
Abbey,  leaving  out  of  consideration  for  the  moment,  of  course, 
the  Lady  Chapel  of  Henry  VII,  which  is  of  later  date.  Great 
contemporary  English  churches  like  Canterbury,  Lincoln,  and 
others  extended  much  farther  to  the  east. 

There  is  an  exact  resemblance  in  the  type  of  window  used 
throughout  Rheims  and  Westminster.  To  the  modern  eye 
the  Abbey  may  seem  dim  ;  but  that  is  rather  a  consequence 
from  its  accessories  than  of  its  lighting  system,  for  it  will 
be  observed  that  the  windows  are  of  great  width,  occupying 
practically  all  the  wall  space  ;  and  that  in  the  clerestories  they 
rise  very  high  into  the  roof.  This  bold  transforming  of  wall 
into  window  is  definitely  French,  as  was  the  development  of 
traceried  windows.  Typical  English  lighting  of  that  period 
was  by  means  of  the  lancet  window,  separate  or  in  groups,  and 
the  traceried  window,  that  is,  two  or  more  lights  combined  into 
one  window  by  means  of  an  arch,  was  not  much  used  here  before 
Henry  III  built  his  church.  The  particular  pattern  that  he 
adopted,  in  aisle,  clerestory,  and  chapel,  is  a  copy  of  that  at 
Rheims — two  great  lights  surmounted  by  a  cinquefoil  rose, 
the  whole  bound  together  by  tracery  within  a  lofty  pointed 
arch.  The  smaller  windows  of  the  triforium,  which  are  not 
visible  from  the  interior  of  the  church,  are  of  three  quatrefoil 

43 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

roses  bound  into  a  triangle ;  and  are  of  a  design  used  both 
in  the  Sainte-Chapelle  and  at  Amiens. 

Another  similarity  to  Rheims  is  in  the  construction  and 
lighting  of  the  chapels  of  the  apse ;  and  both  churches  have 
a  small  oblong  chapel  on  the  north  and  south  sides  of  the 
ambulatory,  at  the  springing  of  the  apse.  There  are  many 
interesting  resemblances  of  detail ;  but  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  enumerate  them  in  order  to  establish  the  connexion  with 
Rheims.  On  the  question  of  French  influence  generally,  how- 
ever, much  more  might  be  said,  almost  enough,  in  fact,  to 
make  a  crude  claim  for  Westminster  as  a  French  church. 

We  have  seen  by  the  record  of  Matthew  Paris  that 
Henry  III  pulled  down  the  Confessor's  church  to  make  space  for 
his  own  ;  and  the  new  church  was  raised  on  parallel  foundations. 
Its  main  lines  were  therefore  given  ;  but  its  height  was  greatly 
increased,  to  accord  with  the  prevailing  fashion  in  France. 
Westminster,  with  rather  over  a  hundred  feet  to  the  apex  of  the 
vault,  is  the  loftiest  church  in  England ;  and  its  proportions, 
with  a  height  of  thrice  the  span  of  the  nave,  are  typically 
French. 

Again,  the  absence  of  a  central  tower  is  governed  by  the 
French  design.  One  remembers  how  that  tower  figured  in  the 
account  of  the  Norman  church  by  the  old  poet ;  but  having 
been  demolished,  it  was  not  replaced  because  the  slender  piers  of 
the  new  style  were  not  strong  enough  to  support  it.  Again,  the 
original  rose  windows  of  the  north  and  south  transepts,  set,  as 
the  south  rose  still  is,  in  a  square,  were  probably  the  only 
examples  of  their  kind  in  England,  although  the  model  was  used 
44 


LONG    LIVE    THE    KING! 

at  Rouen,  Rheims,  and  Tours.  And  the  four-light  windows  of 
the  Chapter  House  resemble  those  of  the  Sainte-Chapelle. 

The  abutment  of  the  exterior  is  entirely  French,  with  its 
pillars  weighted  by  turrets,  and  its  elaborate  system  of  flying 
buttresses,  enormously  developed  on  the  south  side,  where  they 
rise  in  three  tiers  and  attain  immense  breadth  in  passing  over 
the  cloister  to  support  the  clerestory.  The  plan  of  the  north 
porch  seems  to  have  been  based  on  that  of  the  front  of  Amiens, 
where  there  also  is  a  diaper  decoration  (the  word  diaper  is  from 
the  n2iVCi&  d  Ypres)  which  reappears  in  the  square  diapering  of 
the  spandrils  of  the  Abbey  arcades. 

Yet,  although  one  might  continue  in  this  strain  to  deduce 
the  fact  that  the  Abbey  is  a  French  church,  we  should  not  arrive 
thus  at  the  whole  truth  about  its  architecture,  the  truth  being, 
as  often,  very  much  different  from  the  facts.  We  should  have  to 
consider  many  other  things,  as,  for  instance,  the  cause,  manner, 
and  effect  of  that  Englishing  of  which  we  have  already  spoken  ; 
of  just  how  it  came  about  that  such  a  foreign  erection  took  on  a 
native  character.  It  is  well  for  us  that  on  this  aspect  of  the 
subject  we  are  concerned  only  with  the  original  builders ;  for 
there  would  be  many  harsh  things  to  say  about  the  later  English 
hands  that  defaced  by  hideous  monuments  the  pure  lines  of  the 
fabric,  in  a  way  which,  were  it  ever  conceivable  in  France,  would 
not  be  tolerated  there  for  an  instant.  Fortunately  we  have  to 
do  with  a  healthier  mental  state  than  that  feverish  mania  for 
notoriety ;  and  with  a  simpler,  nobler  set  of  people.  Out  of 
the  integrity  of  Henry's  workmen  emanated  something  eternal, 
which  remains  in  the  Abbey  as  their  indestructible  legacy.     It 

45 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

is  an  influence  to  be  felt,  rather  than  a  tangible  thing  to  be 
seen,  though  certain  evidence  of  it  is  visible  to  the  trained  eye, 
and  is  susceptible  of  interpretation.  But  chiefly  it  is  a  sense  of 
rightness,  harmony,  and  joy  that  one  has  within  the  Abbey,  and 
that  seems  to  come  from  the  spirit  of  those  long-dead  men  who 
laboured  together  in  hearty  good-will  because  they  loved  their 
work. 

There  are,  however,  certain  definite  characteristics  which 
they  imparted,  the  most  important  of  which  seems  to  have  been 
the  construction  of  what  one  may  call  a  second  storey  all  round 
the  church.  In  the  apse  this  results  in  a  second  set  of  chapels 
repeated  above,  at  the  triforium  level.  Another  singular  feature, 
and  one  which  makes  an  irregularity  that  is  certainly  English, 
is  that  the  south  transept  is  narrower  than  the  north,  at  least  on 
the  ground  floor.  That  is  because  the  cloister  runs  outside  its 
west  wall  ;  but  above  the  cloister,  that  is  to  say,  at  the  second- 
storey  level  of  the  church,  the  transept  is  open,  and  corre- 
sponds in  width  to  that  on  the  north  side.  Apart  from  this 
irregularity,  the  transepts  themselves  are  wider  than  in  French 
churches,  because  aisles  were  needed  ;  and  the  vault  construction 
was  modified  by  the  workmen  according  to  their  better  English 
method.  The  use  of  Purbeck  marble,  turned  on  the  lathes  of 
Purbeck  masons,  determined  not  only  the  finer  appearance,  but 
the  shape  of  shaft  and  abacus  ;  and  English  masonry  is  evident 
in  every  detail.  Lastly,  the  magnificent  Chapter  House  is  in 
the  English  polygonal  style. 

Henry  the  Third's  church  took  about  twenty-five  years  to 
erect ;  and  the  work  was  practically  continuous  all  that  time. 
46 


LONG    LIVE    THE    KING! 

His  structure  comprises  the  apse,  with  its  ambulatory  and 
chapels,  its  presbytery,  and  the  shrine  of  Edward  the  Confessor  ; 
the  crossing  and  lantern  ;  the  north  and  south  transepts  with 
their  aisles  and  chapels  and  the  great  north  portal ;  and  the 
nave  down  to  the  end  of  the  fifth  bay. 

It  was  a  work  of  great  architectural  magnitude ;  but  the 
King  was  not  concerned  with  the  fabric  only,  for  he  took  an  un-  . 
failing  delight  in  decoration  and  enrichment  of  every  kind.  The 
golden  shrine,  whose  unparalleled  glory  was  to  be  the  King's 
especial  care,  was  even  longer  in  completing  than  the  church, 
for  it  was  begun  first  in  1241  ;  and  until  the  last  year  of 
Henry's  life,  1272,  he  was  busy  adding  to  its  treasures. 

We  have  seen  that  the  preparatory  work  of  demolishing  the 
Norman  Abbey  was  begun  in  1243.  It  was  not  until  1245, 
however,  that  actual  rebuilding  commenced,  and  in  the  follow- 
ing year  Henry  ordained  that  he  should  be  buried  beside  the 
Confessor.  In  1247  the  relic  of  the  Holy  Blood  was  offered  at 
the  altar;  and  in  that  year  and  the  year  following  the  King 
instituted  the  Fair  at  Westminster,  '  in  aid  of  the  Reconstruction 
Fund,'  as  church-improvers  of  these  days  would  say.  Thereafter 
the  work  proceeded  steadily,  though  at  some  damage  to  the 
King's  popularity,  and  Westminster  became  an  art  centre,  with 
schools  of  painting  and  masonry,  sculpture,  and  metal-work. 
Construction  began  at  the  extreme  east,  and  proceeded  first  by 
way  of  the  northern  bays  of  the  apse,  and  then  by  its  southern 
side,  to  the  south  transept,  the  nave  and  the  north  portal, 
finishing  at  last  in  the  year  1269. 

On  the  13th  of  October,  1269,  came  the  great  day  of  Henry's 

47 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

life,  a  day  comparable  only  with  that  of  the  consecration  of  the 
Norman  church,  and  awaited  doubtless  with  the  same  eager 
anticipation  with  which  the  Confessor  had  longed  to  live  to 
dedicate  his  church.  Then  for  the  first  time  was  divine  service 
celebrated  in  the  Abbey  as  we  know  it  ;  and  on  that  day,  the 
anniversary  of  the  Confessor's  first  translation,  he  was  removed 
to  his  ultimate  resting-place  in  the  magnificent  shrine  which 
had  been  built  to  receive  him. 

This  is  how  the  old  chronicler  Fabyan  records  the  event : 

In  the  ende  of  this  yere,  .  .  .  the  Kynge  lette  translate  with  great 
solempnytie,  the  holy  body  of  seynt  Edwarde  Kynge  and  Confessour, 
that  before  laye  in  the  syde  of  the  quere,  where  the  monkes  now  synge, 
into  ye  chapell  at  the  backe  of  the  hyghe  aulter  of  Westmester  Abbey, 
and  there  layde  it  in  a  ryche  shryne. 

Henry  III  had  better  fortune  than  his  predecessor,  for  he 
was  not  only  present  at  the  solemn  ceremony,  but  did  with  his 
own  hands  convey  the  holy  dust  of  his  patron  saint  to  the 
splendid  tomb  that  he  had  made.  He  had  called  together  a 
great  assemblage  of  nobility,  magistrates,  and  burgesses,  "  and 
the  chest  having  been  taken  out  of  the  old  shrine,  the  King, 
with  his  brother  the  King  of  the  Romans,  carried  it  upon  their 
shoulders  in  view  of  the  whole  church,  and  his  sons,  Edward 
(afterward  King),  and  Edmund,  the  Earl  of  Lancaster,  the  Earl 
of  Warren,  and  the  Lord  Philip  Basset,  with  as  many  other 
nobles  as  could  come  near  to  touch  it,  supported  it  with  their 
hands  to  the  new  shrine,  which  was  of  gold,  adorned  with 
precious  stones,  and  eminently  placed  in  the  church." 

Three  years  afterward  Henry  III  died,  and  was  buried 
48 


LONG    LIVE    THE    KING! 

before  the  high  altar  of  the  Abbey  which  he  had  erected  with 
such  toilful  and  troubled  joy.  His  last  public  act  was  profoundly 
characteristic.  Some  vandals  had  fired  a  church  at  Norwich, 
and  Henry,  shocked  at  the  sacrilege  and  enraged  at  the 
destruction  of  the  lovely  building,  took  a  journey  there  to  in- 
vestigate the  matter.  "  By  the  affection  which  is  due  to  our 
Lord  I  will  go  and  see  into  this  deed  of  wickedness,"  he  cried 
on  hearing  the  news  ;  and  when  he  stood  at  last  on  the  scene, 
"  and  saw  that  the  church  was  entirely  destroyed  by  fire,  he  could 
scarcely  refrain  from  shedding  tears."  True  lover  of  God  and 
Beauty  as  Henry  was,  the  blow  was  too  cruel ;  and  it  is  no 
wonder  that  on  the  journey  back  he  was  taken  with  a  mortal 
sickness,  and  died  at  Bury  St  Edmunds.  This  was  he  who, 
rallied  on  going  to  the  Mass  instead  of  hearing  sermons, 
replied :  "  I  had  rather  receive  a  friend  than  hear  him  talked 
about";  and  it  was  Henry,  too,  who  planted  pear-trees  "in  the 
herbary  between  the  King's  chamber  and  the  church,"  so  that 
he  might  see  his  Abbey  walls,  themselves  with  the  grace  of 
springing  flowers,  rising  out  of  a  sea  of  snowy  pear-blossom. 
In  that  Paradise  which  he  has  surely  attained  by  this  time,  he 
will  hardly  have  found  a  lovelier  sight.  And  there,  in  reward 
for  abbey-building — Long  live  the  King  I 


49 


CHAPTER  IV :  A  Benedictine  Monastery 

ENGLISH  people  everywhere  speak  familiarly  of  West- 
minster Abbey  as  'the  Abbey,'  but  that  of  course  is 
not  its  name.  Its  proper  style  and  title  is  '  The 
Collegiate  Church  of  St  Peter  at  Westminster ' ;  and  it 
was  so  established  by  Queen  Elizabeth  in  the  year  1560.  Its 
right  to  be  called  'Abbey'  had  in  fact  lapsed  twenty  years 
before  that  date,  when  Henry  VIII  dissolved  the  monastery; 
yet  the  old  name  lingers,  vital  and  persistent,  and  no  one  ever 
speaks  of  the  church  by  any  other. 

The  use  of  the  word  '  Abbey '  in  this  sense  is  in  effect 
universal.  So  that  one  may  find  it,  not  merely  among  those 
big  British  families  up  and  down  the  world  known  as  colonies, 
but  among  people  who  are  not  British  at  all,  and  who  do  not 
speak  the  English  tongue.  The  writer  has  seen  the  words 
'  notre  Abbaye'  evoke  an  instant  gleam  of  comprehension  in  the 
eyes  of  a  native  Corsican  living  at  the  wild  heart  of  his  country, 
in  a  mountain  village  some  three  thousand  five  hundred  feet  up. 
And  when,  suspecting  him  of  politeness,  an  explanation  was 
begun  of  the  special  significance  of  our  word  'Abbey,'  it  was 
waved  aside  half  impatiently:  ''Mais,  je  la  connais  bien,  voire 
AbbayeT  One  would  not  have  been  so  surprised  at  the  remark 
from  the  friendly  old  curd,  living  in  his  sure  and  certain  hope 
that  England  will  yet  return  to  the  Roman  fold.  But  this  was 
a  layman  and  (which  somehow  seems  more  wonderful  still)  a 
jurist :  an  amateur  in  oils  and  an  ardent  angler ;  and  he  had 
never  been  in  England.  But,  the  unintelligent  moment  over, 
one  remembered  how  many  in   England,  whether   lawyers  or 

50 


A    BENEDICTINE    MONASTERY 

county  cricketers,  lettered  or  unlettered,  travelled  or  stay-at- 
home,  know  perfectly  the  purport  of  the  word  '  Rheims."  There 
are  some  words  so  steeped  in  history,  so  coloured  with  magnifi- 
cent associations,  so  resonant  of  the  music  of  humanity  that  one 
has  only  to  utter  them,  and  the  ear  of  the  listener  is  flooded  with 
the  sound.  So  it  is  with  our  word  '  Abbey '  ;  and  therein  are 
those  early  monks  avenged — or,  as  their  gentler  shades  would 
prefer  to  put  it,  therein  are  they  rewarded. 

There  is  indeed  a  poetic  justice  in  the  survival  of  the 
title,  a  vindication  of  those  first  regulars  of  St  Benedict 
who  settled  on  Thorny  Island.  They  found  the  region,  as 
we  know,  a  "terrible  place,"  thickset  with  thorn  and  infested 
with  wild  beasts.  They  made  it — very  largely  it  was  they  who 
made  it — what  we  know,  the  starting-point  and  ultimately  the 
centre  of  British  civilization. 

The  Benedictine  Rule,  with  its  emphasis  on  the  communal 
as  against  the  eremitical  life,  its  exaltation  of  the  idea  of  peace 
and  its  insistence  upon  industry,  must  have  been  in  its  first 
beginnings  on  this  island  a  powerful  civilizing  influence.  And 
what  it  had  originated  it  carried  steadily  on  for  centuries  before 
decay  overtook  it,  caring  for  education,  fostering  the  arts  and 
the  more  humane  letters,  and  tirelessly  persisting  in  con- 
structive labour. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  monks  of  the  first  founda- 
tion on  Thorny  Island  (whether  that  was  co-eval  with  Sebert 
or  did  not  appear  until  somewhat  later),  were  chiefly  the  means 
of  rendering  it  habitable.  They  exterminated  the  fierce  beasts, 
sunk  wells,  cleared,  drained,  and  tilled  the  land,  made  roads, 

51 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

planted  gardens,  erected  farm  buildings  to  store  grain  and  house 
cattle,  and  developed  all  the  industries  needful  to  the  life  of  the 
community.  They  were  the  first  engineers,  architects,  and 
farmers ;  and  though  the  site  thus  toilfully  subdued  to  human 
existence  was  ravaged  by  Dane  and  Saxon  again  and  again,  after 
every  fresh  devastation  the  monks  raised  their  convent  out  of 
the  ruins  and  recommenced  their  task  of  laying  the  foundations 
of  civilization. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  whatever  one's  attitude  toward 
monasticism,  and  whether  or  not  one  grants  its  large  spiritual 
claims,  there  can  be  no  question  of  the  material  benefits  conferred 
by  the  Benedictine  Rule  at  Westminster,  as  at  so  many  other 
places.  And  inasmuch  as  there  can  be  no  beginning  of  spiritual 
growth  until  a  sufficient  material  basis  has  been  laid,  therein  at 
least  is  profound  gratitude  due.  Newman,  that  Cardinal  of  the 
white  soul  and  the  golden  tongue,  has  distinguished  the  Bene- 
dictines from  the  other  great  monastic  orders  as  the  '  poetical '  : 
and  this  not  only  because  they  aspired  to  the  things  that  poets 
are  supposed  to  desire,  viz.,  the  beauty  of  nature,  solitude,  and 
meditation,  but  because  they  cultivated  what  is  supposed  to  be 
the  poetical  mind,  repressing  the  inquisitive  intellect  and  giving 
the  emotions  play  in  worship  and  in  good  works.  One  does 
not  challenge  such  a  gracious  teacher.  One  only  takes  a  glance 
at  the  figures  which  represent  the  vast  number  of  Benedic- 
tine houses  throughout  Europe  (there  were  over  a  thousand 
of  them  so  early  as  the  year  1005),  and  observes  that,  compared 
with  their  wide  range  in  time  and  space,  they  produced 
remarkably  little  poetry,  little  intellectual  eminence,  and  save 
52 


A    BENEDICTINE    MONASTERY 

Boniface  and  Augustine,  Dunstan  and  Bede,  few  great  men. 
Which  fact,  however,  need  not  necessarily  invalidate  their 
distinction  as  poetical — though  in  a  different  sense  from  that 
intended  by  Cardinal  Newman.  For  looking  at  that  larger 
view  of  the  poetic  genius  which  sees  it  as  a  shaping  and 
creative  power,  eminently  practical  because  it  is  always 
striving  to  bring  order  out  of  chaos,  in  that  sense  the 
Benedictines  of  Westminster  were  indeed  poets.  And  they 
must  have  been  much  too  busily  occupied  with  their  hewing 
and  building,  sowing  and  reaping  and  milling,  pruning, 
draining  and  irrigating,  baking,  making  and  mending,  to  be 
poets  in  any  other  sense. 

There  is  only  one  pre-eminent  name  in  the  roll  of  the  Abbots 
of  Westminster,  during  the  thousand  years  or  so  that  it  covers. 
Is  that  surprising  ?  It  would  seem  so  at  first  glance ;  and  yet 
what  is  likely  to  happen  in  a  community  which  narrows  deliber- 
ately the  scope  of  thought,  and  would  contain  the  intellect  in  the 
little  boundary  of  primary  needs  ?  The  result  will  be  likely  to 
be  very  similar  to  that  at  Westminster,  a  respectable  level  of 
virtue  and  practical  ability,  with  now  and  then  a  greater  figure 
who,  responding  to  environment,  develops  along  the  lines  of 
courtier  and  statesman ;  but  no  great  poet,  artist,  or  scholar. 

The  eminent  name  is  Simon  Langham,  generous  man, 
devoted  ecclesiastic,  and  disinterested  statesman.  He  was 
created  Abbot  in  1349,  and  held  his  convent  very  dear  through 
all  his  amazing  prosperity,  rapidly  rising  as  he  did  to  be 
Lord  Treasurer  of  England,  Lord  Chancellor,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury ;  and  finally  to  be  created  Cardinal  by  the  Pope  in 

53 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

1368.  He  bequeathed  much  money  to  his  monastery,  and  gave 
it  in  all  ;^io,8oo.  He  was  buried  in  the  Abbey;  and,  as  was 
fitting  for  so  great  a  son  of  his  Order,  in  the  Chapel  of  St 
Benedict. 

It  was  the  fortune  of  the  Abbey,  good  or  bad,  to  become 
associated  very  closely  with  the  Crown  and  Court  at  an  early 
stage  in  its  career.  We  are  not  sure  that  it  was  quite  so  soon 
as  the  pleasant  inventions  of  the  monk  Sporley  would  lead  us 
to  suppose  ;  for  if  so,  it  was  Offa  the  fierce  King  of  Mercia  who 
first  deposited  here  the  coronation  robes  and  regalia.  But  one 
remembers  the  nearness  of  the  royal  palace,  and  the  fact  that  in 
this  church  English  kings  were  crow^ned  and  buried.  The 
consequences  flowing  from  that  state  of  affairs  would  tend  to 
enhance  prestige  as  against  spiritual  values ;  and  the  Abbey 
speedily  became  a  rich  and  famous  foundation,  with  an  Abbot 
who  kept  the  state  of  a  prince,  lived  in  a  palace,  and  disputed 
authority  with  bishops  and  archbishops. 

While  professedly  remaining  humble  and  holy,  the  fraternity 
grew  more  and  more  splendid  and  proud,  even  though,  thanks 
to  Richard  HI,  they  acquired  as  a  relic  the  very  skull  of  their 
pious  founder.  One  would  have  thought  that  a  sufficient  talis- 
man ;  but  no  !  Theoretically  the  monks  were  occupied  with  their 
devotions  and  their  labour.  Services  began  with  Matins  at  2 
a.m.,  followed  by  Lauds.  Prime  was  at  5  a.m.,  Tierce  at  9,  Sext 
at  II,  Nones  at  2  p.m.,  and  Vespers  at  6.  There  was  a  daily 
gathering  in  the  Chapter  House,  whence  the  community  was 
administered  ;  and  they  were  supposed  to  be  in  bed  by  8  p.m. 

It  was  a  full  day,  and  yet  they  somehow  found  time  for 
54 


A    BENEDICTINE    MONASTERY 

quarrels  with  the  Londoners,  and  even  hand-to-hand  fights  with 
them.  They  were  commanded  by  the  Rule  to  silence,  and  to  a 
happy  ignorance  of  the  affairs  of  the  world  outside.  Yet  news 
crept  in  through  chink  and  cranny ;  and  the  monks  devised  a 
way  of  chanting  it  to  each  other  in  the  singing  of  the  litanies  and 
psalms.  They  were  exhorted  to  humility,  and  supposed  them- 
selves very  humble  indeed  ;  and  yet  could  conceive  the  Ruler  of 
the  Universe  ceasing  deliberately  from  His  very  onerous  duties, 
to  crush  to  death  a  man  in  the  Abbey  crowd,  because,  forsooth 
the  unfortunate  had  given  their  convent  some  offence. 

We  hear  of  a  quite  tremendous  battle,  outcome  of  a  certain 
wrestling  match  between  the  city  and  the  Abbey.  A  steward  of 
the  Abbot  was  defeated  by  the  Londoners ;  but  apparently  the 
word  'sporting'  had  not  yet  been  invented,  or  was  not,  at  any 
rate,  current  among  the  monks.  For,  in  arranging  a  return 
match,  the  steward  collected  to  play  on  his  side  all  the  best  pro- 
fessional wrestlers  he  could  find.  Even  so,  however,  the  plaguy 
Londoners  seem  to  have  been  getting  the  better  of  it,  for  our 
Benedictine  friend  treacherously  fell  upon  them  with  an  armed 
party,  beat  and  wounded  them,  and  put  them  to  flight.  A  very 
great  row  ensued,  for  the  populace,  this  time  incited  beyond 
control,  rushed  in  a  riotous  crowd  to  the  Abbey,  burnt  down  the 
steward's  house  and  afterward,  very  imprudently,  assaulted  the 
Abbot  himself.  They  returned  to  the  city  in  huge  delight  at 
having  triumphed  for  once  over  the  arrogant  Abbey.  But  the 
victory  was  as  short  as  the  vengeance  was  sweet ;  for  the 
Abbot  appealed  to  the  King,  and  the  citizens'  leaders  were 
arrested,  and  hanged  a  few  days  after. 

55 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

The  question  of  precedence  between  St  Paul's  and  the 
Abbey  was  a  constant  cause  of  rivalry  and  bitterness,  enlivened 
by  a  sort  of  competition  between  the  chroniclers  of  the  two 
places,  in  which  he  of  St  Paul's  claimed  the  origin  of  his 
church  in  a  Roman  temple  to  Diana ;  and  he  of  Westminster, 
not  to  be  outdone  by  a  mere  city  cathedral,  countered  by 
producing  a  temple  of  Apollo  as  the  original  of  the  Abbey. 

The  grants  made  by  Henry  III  favouring  the  convent 
over  the  city  provoked  the  citizens  to  fury.  On  one  occasion 
they  carried  their  complaints  to  the  Earls  of  Cornwall  and 
Leicester,  who  "  cursed  and  abused  the  Abbot  in  such  a 
manner  as  was  a  shame  to  his  dignity  and  a  scandal  to 
report."  And  the  high-handed  exclusiveness  of  the  Abbot 
brought  against  the  monastery  in  1262  an  action  at  law  by  the 
City  of  London,  in  which  the  City  of  London  was  successful. 

But  we  have  not  yet  glanced  down  that  list  of  the  names 
of  Abbots.  A  very  early  claim  for  Benedictines  at  Westminster 
is  that  St  Augustine,  who  was  trained  in  the  Rule,  introduced 
it  into  this  country  when  he  converted  Kent  in  597.  That 
would  have  been  less  than  fifty  years  after  the  death  of  St 
Benedict,  and  it  is,  of  course,  just  possible.  Then  we  hear  of 
Orthbright,  appointed  Abbot  by  King  Sebert  in  604.  But 
coming  to  authentic  history,  Dunstan  is  known  to  have  brought 
twelve  monks  to  Westminster  after  persuading  King  Edgar  to 
restore  the  monastery  in  960.  Dunstan  is  even  said  to  have 
presided  over  the  monastery  for  a  time,  but  that  is  doubtful  ; 
and  the  first  certain  name  of  an  Abbot  is  Wulfsige,  who 
was  appointed  by  Dunstan  and  who  died  in  1004. 
56 


'j"«- 


A    BENEDICTINE    MONASTERY 

Thenceforward,  the  five  hundred  years'  history  of  the  Abbots 
of  Westminster  is  in  great  measure  the  history  of  England, 
from  Wulnoth,  friend  and  adviser  of  Canute,  to  Boston,  last 
Abbot  at  that  judgment  day  of  the  Dissolution  in  1539.  Between 
those  two  there  were  Edwyn,  the  Confessor's  Abbot,  and  Gilbert 
Crispin,  the  Norman  scholar  introduced  by  the  Conqueror, 
Berkynge,  favourite  of  Henry  III,  Langham  the  Peacemaker, 
and  that  Litlington  who  added  much  to  the  Abbey  structure 
(with  Langham's  money)  and  claimed  the  credit  for  himself- 
There  was,  too,  Islip,  penultimate  name  on  the  long  list,  who 
appears  to  have  been  something  of  a  statesman,  besides  Abbot, 
Commissioner  of  Sewers,  and  builder  (in  the  chapel  which  is 
called  after  him)  of  the  only  bit  of  Perpendicular  English 
Gothic  that  the  Abbey  possesses. 

But  with  these  good  men  there  were  alternated  others  of 
a  very  different  kind.  There  was  Gervaise,  the  natural  son  of 
King  Stephen,  "an  insolent,  arbitrary  man"  of  whom  it  is 
recorded  (so  surprising  and  various  are  the  occasions  of  human 
vanity)  that  he  presumed  too  much  on  his  birth !  There  was 
Papylion  too,  studious  and  a  good  preacher,  but  alas,  he  also  too 
human,  and  accused  of  "  dilapidations  and  incontinency."  And 
now  it  would  surely  seem  that  this  Benedictine  Order,  so  healthy 
and  fruitful  at  first,  is  degenerating  fast.  For  we  find  the 
immoral  Sudbury  procuring  his  appointment  by  a  gift  to 
the  Pope  of  8000  florins — and  leaving  the  payment  of  it 
to  his  successors ;  and  a  despotic  Crokesley,  who  quarrelled 
so  much  with  his  convent  that  it  became  a  "  scandal  and  a 
disgrace." 

57 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

It  would  appear  to  be  time  to  close  the  list ;  and  even  allow- 
ing for  all  sorts  of  mixed  motives  in  Henry  VIII,  one  begins  to 
understand  why  he  found  it  desirable,  in  Stock  Exchange  jargon, 
to  'wind  up'  the  monasteries.  For  helpful  as  their  coffers  may 
have  been  to  the  King,  it  is  clear  that  their  moral  force  was 
all  but  bankrupt ;  and  Henry  possessed  a  very  full  measure  of 
theoretical  morality. 

So  the  Abbacy  was  dissolved  in  1539;  and  Abbot  Boston 
(Benson)  was  appointed  the  first  Dean.  There  was  a  re- 
vival for  a  short  time  by  Mary,  in  a  period  of  inevitable 
reaction  ;  but  to  read  in  these  days  about  the  solemn  historical 
scene  on  November  30,  1554,  when  England  was  reconciled 
with  the  Church  of  Rome,  has  only  an  ironical  interest.  A 
thing  which  comes  much  closer  to  our  hearts,  and  lifts  this  little 
epoch  of  the  restoration  for  a  moment  out  of  the  darkness,  is 
that  in  1557  they  reinstated  the  Confessors  Shrine,  which  in 
Henry's  time  had  been  foully  used.  But  two  years  afterward 
the  final  dissolution  took  effect  under  Elizabeth;  and  in  1560, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  great  Queen  re-established  the  founda- 
tion as  the  College  or  Collegiate  Church  of  St  Peter  at 
Westminster. 

Yet  the  influence  of  the  monastic  origin  of  the  church 
remains  of  vast  interest.  Consider  its  bearing  on  the  actual 
architecture  of  the  place.  The  shaping  power  of  conventual 
needs  is  as  evocative,  and  much  more  obvious,  than  in  such 
intangible  things  as  history  and  civilization.  By  it  were  deter- 
mined the  very  form  and  character  of  the  whole  pile.  The 
reason  why  Westminster  Abbey  is  not  simply  a  church,  but  a 
58 


A    BENEDICTINE    MONASTERY 

great  mass  of  buildings  of  very  various  design  and  purpose,  is 
that  there  was  a  community  of  monks  living  here.  In  early 
times  the  fraternity  was  so  small  a  party  as  twelve— the  twelve 
monks  brought  from  Glastonbury  by  Dunstan.  But  the 
number  rose  in  the  two  succeeding  centuries,  and  attained  an 
average  of  about  fifty.  The  highest  number  which  it  seems  to 
have  reached  is  fifty-eight ;  and  at  the  Dissolution  it  had 
fallen  to  thirty. 

Now  the  Rule  required  that  the  convent  should  be  enclosed 
and  self-supporting.  Apart,  therefore,  from  the  farm  and  all 
the  buildings  that  it  implies,  there  was  of  course  the  need  for 
housing  the  community.  Hence  we  find,  clustered  round  the 
church,  such  domestic  buildings  as  the  refectory,  the  dormitory, 
the  Abbot's  hall,  the  infirmary,  cloisters,  kitchens,  and  crypt. 
Hence,  too,  the  treasury  of  the  convent,  called  the  Chapel  of 
the  Pyx.  There  the  regalia  was  kept,  and  the  standard 
weights  and  measures.  The  King's  Treasury  was  under  the 
Chapter  House,  whence,  in  1303,  Edward  I  was  robbed  of  a 
vast  sum  that  he  had  hoarded  to  pay  for  his  Scottish  wars. 

That  burglary  of  the  King's  Treasury  was  a  lamentable 
defection  of  our  poetical  Benedictines — for  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  monks  connived  at  it.  Forty-eight  of  them  were 
arrested  and  tried  at  the  Tower ;  and  the  Sub-prior  and  Sacrist 
were  eventually  convicted.  They  had  planned  the  whole  thing 
very  cleverly,  in  concert  with  a  certain  Richard  de  Podlicote; 
and  they  had  even  sown,  a  month  or  two  before,  plentiful 
healthy  hemp-seed  in  the  cloister-garth.  When  this  was  a  tall 
and  flourishing  crop,  they  carefully  hid  in  it,  little  by  little,  the 

59 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

treasure  that  had  been  abstracted  secretly  from  the  King's 
Treasury ;  and  finally  they  carried  it  off  by  night  in  a  boat 
across  the  river. 

From  the  constitution  of  the  community,  too,  and  the  fact 
that  it  was  governed  through  the  deliberation  of  all  the  monks 
met  together  in  daily  assembly,  rose  the  Chapter  House,  one  of 
the  loveliest  features  of  the  Abbey  architecture. 

Thus  one  passes,  reviewing  this  monastic  influence  on 
actual  design,  to  the  church  itself.  One  wonders  sometimes 
why  the  choir  of  Westminster  should  occupy  a  large  part  of  the 
nave.  And  then  one  remembers  the  reason.  These  five  bays 
of  the  nave,  fitted  with  an  organ  and  effectively  screened  from 
the  rest  of  the  church,  constituted  the  monks'  chapel ;  and 
where  seats  are  now,  were  their  stalls.  Because  this  church 
was  to  be  a  place  suited  for  the  worship  of  God  by  monks,  its 
nucleus  is  the  high  altar  and  the  choir ;  and  all  other  con- 
struction is  subordinated  to  that. 

But  the  monks  had  other  devotional  needs  beside  this 
central  heart  of  their  worship.  Although  Benedictines  were, 
in  the  early  days  of  the  Rule,  mostly  laymen,  it  became  very 
general  for  them  to  take  orders ;  and  every  priest  was  required 
to  say  Mass  once  a  day.  When  it  is  remembered  how  large  a 
foundation  Westminster  was  at  the  time  that  Henry  HI  built, 
it  will  be  seen  that  this  cause  determined  the  erection  of 
numerous  altars,  each,  of  course,  with  its  chapel.  Thus  there 
were  to  be  found,  grouped  about  the  nucleus  of  high  altar  and 
choir,  as  many  as  twenty  separate  chapels ;  with  the  result  that 
the  Abbey  was  not  one  church,  but  many — a  central  church  of 
60 


A    BENEDICTINE    MONASTERY 

St  Peter,  surrounded  by  others  dedicated  to  saints  whom  the 
faith  of  the  time  desired  as  intercessors. 

Again,  an  important  part  of  monkish  ritual  was  the 
procession,  and  this  determined  several  architectural  features  of 
the  Abbey  ;  as,  for  example,  the  ambulatory,  or  passage  round 
the  apse  for  the  monks  to  traverse  the  back  of  the  high  altar : 
the  doorways  out  of  the  south  aisle  (that  at  the  east  end  for 
the  procession  to  pass  out,  and  that  at  the  west  for  it  to  return), 
and  the  doorway  in  the  choir-screen  through  which  the  monks 
passed  back  into  their  stalls. 

The  great  procession  on  Sunday  morning  before  High 
Mass  was  a  long  and  elaborate  affair.  It  visited  and  aspersed 
every  altar  in  the  church  and  precincts.  First  it  went  to  the 
high  altar,  and'  all  the  altars  set  about  that  sacred  spot.  Thence 
it  passed  into  the  north  transept,  and  eastward  round  the 
ambulatory  to  the  lady  chapel  and  its  aisles,  aspersing  each  altar 
in  its  transit.  Thence  to  the  south  transept,  the  chapel  of  St 
Faith,  the  south  aisle  of  the  nave,  and  out  into  the  eastern 
cloister.  All  round  the  eastern,  southern,  and  western  walks  it 
would  go,  visiting  the  Chapter  House,  dormitory,  infirmary, 
etc.,  and  enter  the  church  again  by  the  west  cloister  door.  Then 
all  the  altars  in  the  nave  would  be  aspersed,  and  a  stand  would 
be  made,  in  double  file,  before  the  rood  screen,  which  in  those 
days  stood  at  the  western  end  of  the  nave.  After  certain  prayers 
had  been  said,  the  monks  would  pass  through  the  two  doors 
of  the  rood  screen,  form  into  single  file,  and  enter  their  stalls 
by  way  of  the  door  in  the  centre  of  the  choir  screen.  Then 
High  Mass  would  begin. 

6i 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

But  we  have  not  yet  acknowledged  our  debt  to  the  Abbots 
of  the  monastery  for  the  construction  of  the  nave  and  the 
western  end. 

Henry  III  built  the  church  proper,  that  is  to  say,  the 
nucleus  of  which  we  have  spoken  as  the  heart  of  the  monks' 
worship.  This  central  church  of  St  Peter,  consisting  of  apse, 
crossing,  and  choir,  Henry  practically  completed.  We  re- 
member, however,  that  the  King  only  destroyed  of  the 
Confessor's  building  so  much  as  he  determined  to  rebuild. 
Hence  he  left  the  old  Norman  nave  standing ;  and  Professor 
Lethaby,  the  surveyor  of  the  fabric,  has  made  a  charming  word- 
picture  of  the  whole  Abbey  as  it  then  appeared  : 

The  great  bulk  of  the  eastern  work  rose  high  above  the  nave  and 
Lady  Chapel ;  the  stone  work  was  fair  and  sharp  ;  the  lead  roof  shone  like 
silver  ;  the  window-glass  gleamed  against  the  light  like  nets  of  sea-water 
or  as  if  mixed  of  fire  and  sky ;  the  royal  doors,  with  their  noble  statues 
of  the  Apostles,  were  daintily  illuminated  in  colour  and  gold.  The 
greater  part  of  the  cloister  was  of  sturdy  Norman  work,  wood-roofed. 
The  dormitory  over  its  cellars  and  the  refectory  were  long  ranges  of 
early  Norman  building,  while  the  infirmary,  which  backed  close  upon 
some  of  the  palace  buildings,  was  of  elegant  transitional  Norman.  To 
complete  the  picture,  we  are  to  think  of  our  Abbey  as  set  about  with  its 
farm-buildings,  granaries  and  mills,  and  its  orchards  and  fields. 

So  Henry  left  the  fabric,  complete  and  lovely,  but  in  two 
totally  contrasted  styles.  Probably  he  supposed  that  his  royal 
successors  would  proceed  to  replace  the  Norman  nave  by  one 
which  should  correspond  to  his  own  structure.  But  the  King 
who  immediately  followed  him  was  keener  in  battle  than  in  art. 
To  him  it  was  so  much  more  important  to  subdue  Scotland  than 
62 


A    BENEDICTINE    MONASTERY 

to  build  churches ;  and  besides,  was  there  not  the  royal  palace 
to  claim  the  attention  of  a  virile  and  victorious  monarch  ? 

For  more  than  a  century  no  royal  hand  was  outstretched  to 
the  Abbey.  Then,  in  1388,  Richard  II  was  smitten  with  a  sense 
of  responsibility.  He  undertook  to  assist  the  rebuilding  of  the 
nave ;  and  he  left  by  his  will  certain  jewels  to  help  pay  the  cost 
of  it.  Henry  V,  too,  immediately  upon  his  accession,  appointed 
a  commission  of  two  persons  to  take  charge  of  this  work  ;  and 
let  the  reader  note  well  who  those  two  persons  were.  For  they 
were  no  other  than  the  Prior  of  the  Abbey,  and— Sir  Richard 
Whittington,  Lord  Mayor  of  London  !  One  likes  to  think  of 
those  colleagues  :  of  the  Abbey  and  the  city,  after  centuries  of 
zestful  wrangling,  at  last  meeting  on  polite  terms  :  of  the  proud 
Prior  and  the  famous  Dick  co-operating :  of  the  lion  and  the 
lamb,  or  at  least  the  cat,  lying  down  together. 

Yet  these  two  Kings  and  one  or  two  others  who,  though 
more  feebly,  helped  to  sustain  building  operations,  were  not  of 
great  importance  in  the  history  of  the  nave.  Of  the  Henry  VII 
Chapel  we  do  not  now  speak,  of  course,  since  it  is  a  separate 
single  achievement,  and  must  be  considered  by  itself.  But  that 
apart,  the  completion  of  the  Abbey  as  we  know  it  was  the  work 
of  certain  able  and  devoted  Abbots  who  succeeded  each  other 
from  the  time  when  Henry  III  died  until  the  nave  was  finished 
in  1517. 

You  may  think  that  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  is  a  long 
time  to  take  in  building  a  nave.  Well,  so  it  is,  even  with  a  full 
realization  of  what  such  an  undertaking  entails — in  planning, 
preparing,   quarrying,   hewing,   transporting,   shaping,    erecting 

63 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

and  adorning  these  immense  walls,  triforia,  clerestories,  and 
vaults — under  medieval  conditions.  But  in  the  first  place 
the  convent  was  not  now  assured  of  limitless  supplies  of  money, 
wrung  from  the  pockets  of  infuriated  burgesses.  The  Edwards 
were  wise  in  their  generation,  and  did  not  harass  for  that  par- 
ticular cause  their  subjects.  And  in  the  second  place,  the  monks 
had  vastly  more  than  the  nave  to  construct  during  that  period. 

A  grave  misfortune  had  befallen  the  Abbey  in  1298.  A 
fire  in  Westminster  Palace  spread  to  the  convent  and  consumed 
the  refectory,  the  Abbot's  hall,  the  dormitory,  the  cloisters,  and 
other  important  parts  of  the  monastic  buildings.  To  recon- 
struct such  a  vast  range  was  a  task  demanding  huge  sums  of 
money  and  a  long  period  of  time.  It  would  absorb  completely 
the  revenues  of  the  foundation,  and  as  we  know,  there  was 
now  no  royal  fund  available.  The  calamity  prevented  any 
possibility  of  commencing  the  nave  for  many  years.  Temporary 
wooden  buildings  were  put  up,  to  be  replaced  in  stone  as  time 
and  funds  allowed  ;  and  the  earliest  portion  of  this  new  work 
(a  very  interesting  bit  at  the  southern  end  of  the  east  cloister) 
was   done   by   Byrcheston,  who   succeeded   to   the   Abbacy  in 

1344- 

The  great  Langham  followed,  projecting  and  commencing 

immense  works  which  Litlington,  who  succeeded  him,  completed 

and  took  the  credit  for.     These   comprised  the  rebuilding  of 

the   infirmary,    the   dormitory   (now    a    part    of    Westminster 

School),  together  with   the  cellarer's  offices  and  guest   house, 

the  water-mill  and  its  dam,  the  Abbot's  hall  (now  the  deanery), 

including  the  Jerusalem  Chamber,  where   Henry  IV  died ;   as 

64 


^«.^' 


A    BENEDICTINE    MONASTERY 

well  as  the  southern  walk  of  the  cloister  and  the  greater  part 
of  the  western  walk.  In  the  bosses  of  some  of  the  vaults  here 
will  be  found  the  initials  '  N.  L.'  by  which  the  hardy  Litlington 
signed  the  work  as  his. 

Langham  had  a  strong  desire  to  commence  the  new  nave ; 
and  one  may  well  imagine  that  this  large  scheme  of  domestic 
construction  which  he  had  imposed  upon  himself  irked  him 
not  a  little.  He  pushed  it  forward  for  twelve  years  ;  but  it 
was  still  unfinished  when  he  was  made  Cardinal  and  went 
away  to  France.  He  did  not  forget  his  convent,  however ; 
and  from  Avignon  he  sent  a  generous  promise  to  pay  an  annual 
sum  so  long  as  he  lived  toward  the  project  that  he  held  so  dear. 
In  1376,  therefore,  by  grace  of  Langham's  munificence, 
the  nave  was  begun ;  and  the  first  stone  of  it  was  laid  by 
Litlington.  There  is  a  letter  of  this  year  from  Litlington  to 
the  Cardinal,  in  which  he  says,  in  tones  which  are  the  echo  of 
his  character:  "  I  myself  laid  the  first  stone  on  the  ist  Monday 
in  Lent." 

But  there  is  not  a  great  deal  to  show  in  the  nave  for  what 
Litlington  achieved,  with  all  his  resources.  There  was  of 
course  a  great  deal  of  preparatory  work  to  do — more  of  that 
zealous  demolition  which  always  preceded  the  constructive 
efforts  of  the  faithful.  It  is  more  than  likely,  too,  that 
Litlington  had  a  dravverful  of  unpaid  bills  for  those  other 
works,  to  which  he  appropriated,  with  a  private  sigh  of  relief, 
part  of  Langham's  grant  for  the  nave.  From  whatever  cause, 
however,  it  is  clear  that  he  accomplished  only  three  bays  of  the 
wall  of  the  south  aisle,  from  the  point  at  which  Henry's  work 

E  ,  65 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

stopped  ;  with  the  three  bays  of  the  cloister  which  abut  on  that 
part  of  the  wall.  For  Langham's  supreme  generosity  and 
devotion,  therefore,  nothing  is  to  be  seen  in  the  church  itself, 
save  those  three  bays  of  the  south  wall.  To  see  that  bit  of  wall, 
you  must  traverse  the  south  aisle  and  count  from  the  east, 
beginning  with  the  first  great  pier  at  the  crossing,  until  you 
reach  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  bays.  And  then,  having 
located  the  spot,  you  will  find  that  it  is  all  but  hidden  under  a 
layer  of  memorial  tablets. 

However,  it  was  a  beginning,  and  vastly  interesting  on 
that  account,  little  of  it  as  can  be  seen.  There  is  another  point 
of  the  later  work  in  the  nave  which  intrigues  the  mind.  It  is  the 
junction  with  Henry  the  Third's  structure  at  the  triforium  level ; 
and  it  is  positively  eloquent.  The  diapering  of  the  spandrils, 
done  so  joyously  by  Henry's  workmen,  ceases  here ;  and  the 
plain  wall,  which  was  not  made  until  much  later,  succeeds. 
But  the  string-courses  do  not  precisely  join.  Somebody  must 
have  miscalculated  in  the  new  work.  Probably  a  draughtsman 
lost  his  job  over  the  mistake,  and  the  chief  mason  had  a  tre- 
mendous wigging ;  and  the  architect  felt  the  error  as  a  blot 
on  his  career ;  and  yet  it  is  a  delight.  For  had  the  wall  been 
joined  with  perfect  accuracy  one  would  never  have  recognized 
the  spot,  looking  up ;  never  have  thought  on  the  long  gap 
of  time,  perhaps  two  hundred  years,  that  separates  those 
short  inches ;  and  never  have  gauged  the  fidelity  of  those 
old  abbots,  architects,  and  workmen  who,  following  Henry's 
dea,  erred  only  so  minutely  in  fulfilling  his  design. 

The  construction  progressed  very  slowly  after  Litlington's 
66 


A    BENEDICTINE    MONASTERY 

death.  It  proceeded,  bay  by  bay,  of  the  ground  story  first  ; 
after  which  the  triforia  were  finished  over  the  aisles  before 
the  clerestories  were  begun.  Lastly,  the  vaulting  and  glazing- 
were  done,  and  the  paving  of  the  nave  completed  in  the 
year  1517. 

The  primary  architectural  fact  about  all  this  work  is  its 
perfect  harmony,  not  only  with  itself,  but  with  the  style  of 
Henry's  church.  Dates  are  useful  in  this  connexion.  About 
a  hundred  years  had  elapsed  between  the  completion  of  Henry's 
building  in  1272  and  the  laying  of  the  first  stone  of  the 
nave ;  and  it  was  a  period  of  activity  and  growth  in  Ciothic 
architecture.  Yet  in  planning  the  new  structure,  no  thought 
was  admitted  but  the  continuation  of  the  French  style  of 
Henry's  church.  Again,  the  nave  grew  so  slowly  that  there 
was  time  in  the  long  intervals  for  a  complete  new  develop- 
ment in  English  Gothic :  yet  the  original  style  was  persisted 
in  with  but  slight  modifications.  When  one  remembers  how 
keen  the  medieval  builders  were,  how  they  adored  their  art 
and  loved  to  improve  it,  and  how  rapidly  they  progressed 
from  point  to  point  toward  a  style  of  great  magnificence,  one 
salutes  the  rightness  of  judgment  and  restraint  which  created 
the  unity  of  Westminster,  making  it  sing  together  in  all  its 
parts  one  song  of  delicate  grace  and  stateliness. 

One  neeci  not  specify  perhaps,  in  this  tribute  to  monastic 
energy,  the  exact  contribution  of  succeeding  abbots  to  the 
rearing  of  the  nave.  Colchester,  with  Henry  V  supporting 
him,  vigorously  pushed  on  the  work,  and  wisely  reintroduced 
the  use  of  Purbeck  marble  for  the  pillars,  as    Henry  III    had 

67 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

done.  He  died  in  1420;  and  the  work  was  practically  at  a 
standstill  until  Millyng,  without  any  royal  aid,  built  a  bay 
and  began  to  roof  the  clerestory.  Esteney  succeeded  to  the 
Abbacy  in  1474.  Suspected  by  Henry  VH  of  Yorkist 
leanings,  he  was  obliged  to  dispense  with  the  royal  favour. 
He  managed  very  well  without  it,  however,  for  his  record  of 
achievement  is  high.  He  continued  the  vaulting  and  glazing 
of  the  clerestory,  carried  up  the  west  end  of  the  church, 
reared  buttresses  and  battlements,  and  finished  the  great  west 
window.  Little  wonder  that  he  left  a  deficit  of  about  ;^6ooo ; 
and  gave  his  successor  the  honour  of  paying  it  for  him.  It 
was  all  that  successor  had  time  to  do.  Lastly  Islip,  Abbot 
from  1500  to  1532,  rounded  off  and  completed  all  this  work; 
and  built  the  Jericho  Parlour  and  lovely  Perpendicular  chapel 
which  bears  his  name  and  in  which  he  is  buried.  But  though 
one  speaks  of  the  church  as  finished  about  the  year  151 7,  it 
was  not  in  fact  quite  complete.  The  upper  parts  of  the  two 
western  towers  were  added  in   1740. 


68 


CHAPTER  V  :    The  Holy  Tlace 

LET  US  put  our  shoes  from  off  our  feet,  and  stand  for 
a  few  minutes  in  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the  English 
Race. 

We  are  within  the  railing  before  the  high  altar,  on  the 
spot  where  the  supreme  rite  of  our  religion  has  been  observed 
for  a  thousand  years.  Here,  we  are  taught  to  believe,  is  the 
perpetual  presence  of  God  ;  and  here  certainly  is  manifested 
the  glory  of  the  Spirit  of  Man,  subduing  the  material  world 
to  his  vision  of  truth  and  loveliness. 

Here  our  kings  are  crowned,  their  lives  symbolically 
offered  up  at  the  altar,  in  remote  continuation  of  a  rite  older 
than  history,  wherein  the  King  was  in  actual  fact  sacrificed 
for  his  people. 

Our  race  began  here,  drawing  into  union  at  this  place 
the  contributory  elements  of  Norman,  Saxon,  and  Dane.  Its 
history  lives  in  the  stones  and  vibrates  in  the  air  and  circles 
about  us  in  link  upon  positive  link,  forged  from  those  fused 
elements,  until  the  generations  lie  round  us  like  a  golden 
chain. 

To  our  right  lies  Sebert,  early  Saxon  founder.  Canute 
must  have  stood  on  this  spot  when  first  he  learned  to  add 
mercy  to  pagan  nobleness.  In  front  of  us,  just  beyond  the 
reredos,  and  high  up  in  his  shrine,  are  the  bones  of  the 
Confessor.  At  this  coronation  place  of  English  kings,  and 
first  of  them  to  be  crowned  here,  stood  William  the  Norman. 
On  our  left  lie  Aveline  and  Edmund  Crouchback,  all  Aveline  s 
youth  and  beauty  and  great  estate  brought  low  to  found  the 

69 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

House  of  Lancaster.  Between  them  is  Aymer  de  Valence, 
much-loved  Poitevin  kinsman  of  Henry  HI  ;  and  opposite 
lies  Anne  of  Cleves,  fourth  wife  of  Henry  VHI. 

Thus  lies  the  hallowing  chain,  linking  many  centuries  and 
many  races.  But  the  place  is  holy,  too,  from  its  loveliness. 
Artists  came  from  other  countries  to  decorate  and  embellish 
the  stately  fabric  that  English  workmen  had  made  ;  and  English 
artists,  too,  played  their  important  part.  They  taught  the 
foreigner  and  they  learned  from  him,  in  community  of  ideas. 
They  emulated  and  collaborated.  They  joined  with  strenuous 
and  jolly  comradeship  in  their  stupendous  task  of  evoking 
beauty  from  crude  matter.  Thus,  members  one  of  another 
they  exalted  that  deep  principle  of  all  religion,  with  no  word, 
polemical  or  pedagogic,  said  about  it.  They  proved  by  their 
co-operation,  tacitly  and  implicitly  as  Art  always  can,  the  life- 
giving  force  of  that  principle.  And  here  on  this  spot  made 
sacred  by  Religion  and  History  and  manifold  human  associa- 
tions, their  living  works  testify  to  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of 
Man  (which  is  the  Spirit  of  God)  when  it  is  working  in 
fellowship. 

Beneath  our  humble  feet  is  a  mosaic  pavement  made  by 
an  Italian  artist  with  material  brought  from  Rome  in  1267. 
Above  the  tomb  of  Anne  of  Cleves  is  a  painting  of  Richard  II, 
said  to  be  the  finest  portrait  of  its  period,  which  was  probably 
painted  by  a  Flemish  artist.  Behind  the  portrait  is  a  rich 
hanging  of  old  English  needlework,  and  next  to  that  are  the 
sedilia,  or  ancient  seats  of  the  clergy,  carved  and  painted  by 
English  hands,  about  the  year  1300.  The  three  exquisite  tombs 
70 


THE    HOLY    PLACE 

on  the  left,  of  about  the  same  date,  are  probably  English  too, 
but  English  as  all  the  work  at  Westminster  is,  stimulated 
and  enlivened  by  free  intercourse  with  other  races.  And  the 
reredos,  with  its  complicated  history  and  origin,  not  only  closes 
the  circle  with  a  work  in  some  parts  modern,  but  unites  once 
more  in  an  echo  of  the  centuries  the  voices  of  Italian  and 
English  Art. 

We  must  look  more  closely  at  these  works  of  man  by 
which  the  Holy  Place  is  sanctified ;  and  we  will  try  to  see 
them  as  they  were  in  their  original  freshness.  Very  lovely 
they  still  remain,  and  nothing  could  quench  the  life  of  beauty 
in  them  save  absolute  destruction.  But  the  centuries  have 
robbed  them  of  something ;  and  though  we  may  yet  see  the 
indestructible  spirit  of  the  work,  some  part  of  the  joyous  mood 
in  which  it  clothed  itself  at  first  has  vanished  from  our  sight. 

Think  of  this  sanctuary  (or,  not  to  confuse  it  with  the 
sanctuary  proper  of  the  monastery,  we  will  call  it  the  presby- 
tery) as  it  originally  blazed  with  gold,  sparkled  with  jewels, 
and  shone  with  colour.  It  is  possible  to  evoke  a  mental 
picture  of  it  from  the  evidence  of  material  which  still  exists. 
Hanging  in  the  ambulatory  may  be  seen  a  painted  and  gilded 
panel  which  stood  at  the  back  of  the  early  altar.  There  seems 
no  doubt  that  it  was  the  original  retable,  actually  in  place 
in  the  year  1269,  when  the  church  was  consecrated.  It  is 
dim  and  worn  now ;  and  to  the  casual  eye  it  has  lost  its 
splendour.  But  to  the  eye  of  'him  who  knows' — such,  for 
instance,  as  that  of  Viollet-le-Duc,  famous  French  architect  of 
the  nineteenth  century — it  is    "  an    object    perhaps   unique   in 

71 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Europe,"  the  only  surviving  example  of  that  particular  form  of 
art.  Professor  Lethaby,  too,  whose  judgments  one  confides  in 
because  they  are  so  quietly  stated  and  so  strongly  fortified 
by  reasons,  says  that  this  retable  is  "  the  most  beautiful 
thirteenth-century  painting  in  England." 

One  borrows,  therefore,  the  eye  which  sees  because  it 
brings  with  it  the  power  to  see,  to  help  our  uninformed 
imagination.  The  panel  measures  lo  feet  by  3,  and  is  in  five 
compartments.  Three  of  the  compartments,  those  of  the  centre 
and  two  ends,  were  filled  with  painted  figures,  each  set  in  its 
columned  and  gabled  niche.  The  two  intermediate  ones  had 
each  a  group  of  four  small  scenes  from  Scriptural  history,  set 
medallion  fashion.  In  the  middle  stood  Christ  in  majesty, 
holding  the  universe  in  His  hand  ;  and  on  His  either  side  were 
the  Virgin  and  St  John,  each  bearing  a  palm-branch.  In  the 
end  panel  on  the  left  is  still  visible  the  figure  of  St  Peter ; 
and  the  corresponding  space  at  the  opposite  end  was  probably 
occupied  by  St  Paul. 

One  thinks  of  this  work,  even  thus  baldly  described,  and 
one  perceives  that  in  its  nobility  of  design,  glowing  colour, 
and  vigorous  drawing  it  must  have  been  fully  worthy  of  its 
high  place  of  honour.  But  there  was  more  beside.  All  the 
background  and  the  framework  were  gaily  decorated.  Rich 
gilding  filled  the  ground  behind  the  pictures,  and  that  again 
was  delicately  patterned  over  the  whole  of  its  surface.  The 
spaces  between  the  panels  were  covered  with  brightly  coloured 
mosaic  composed  of  pieces  of  glass,  sometimes  blue  and  some- 
times red  and   green,  which  were  superposed  on  gold  or  on 

72 


THE    HOLY    PLACE 

scarlet,  and  in  their  turn,  were  wrought  upon  with  raised 
designs  in  gold,  now  of  a  flowing  vine,  now  of  the  lion  of 
England,  and  now  of  the  fleur-de-lys.  In  the  framework, 
with  its  reticulated  gilding,  and  over  the  trefoiled  arches  in 
which  the  figures  stood,  were  set  cameos  and  jewels  and 
enamels  ;  and  if  a  modern  realist  declares  that  these  shining 
fragments  were  imitations,  it  is  worth  remarking  that  the 
same  dissecting  hand  and  eye  discovered  what  infinite  pains 
were  taken  in  the  fabrication  of  them,  and  how  very  fine  were 
the  materials  used.  And,  in  any  case,  the  effect  was  one  of 
great  magnificence. 

This,  then,  was  the  altar-piece ;  and  the  gleam  and  sparkle 
of  it  were  repeated  from  every  object  that  stood  about  the  Holy 
Place.  Viollet-le-Duc  conjectured  naively  that  it  must  have 
been  a  French  composition ;  and  there  is  said  to  be  gold- 
smithing  work  that  resembles  it  at  Evreux  and  Rouen.  But 
successive  Abbey  architects,  zealous  for  the  honour  of  native 
craftsmen,  have  challenged  his  assumption.  They  would, 
of  course.  Professor  Lethaby,  reviewing  all  the  evidence, 
plumps  finally  for  a  certain  Master  Walter  of  Durham,  King's 
painter  to  Henry  HI,  who  was  also  responsible  for  the  famous 
Painted  Chamber  of  Westminster  Palace.  And  that  is  not 
aji  unnatural  decision,  powerful  champion  as  Professor  Lethaby 
is  of  those  old  Abbey  artists.  But  may  it  not  be  possible 
that  both  theories  are  right,  and  that  here  is  another  happy 
union  of  English  and  foreign  elements  ?  Perhaps  some  French 
hand  wove  the  gay  mosaic  about  and  about  the  sweet  serious- 
ness of  the   English  painting,  making  the  finished  work  into 

73 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

"  a  beautiful  and  perfect  whole."  If  so,  it  was  not  in  honour 
of  kings  only  that  they  wrought  into  the  shining  pattern  the 
lion  and  the  fleur-de-lys. 

Space  will  not  admit  a  reconstruction  in  detail  of  the 
other  works  that  stood  in  the  presbytery,  and  indeed  it  is 
unnecessary,  for  most  of  them  remain  upon  the  spot.  Yet  in 
looking  at  what  they  are  to-day,  one  must  remember  to 
re-clothe  them  in  their  gold  and  colour  and  intricate  decorative 
patterning. 

There  was  an  embroidery  frontal  to  the  altar,  worked 
elaborately  in  gold,  which  would  have  cost  in  modern  money 
about  five  thousand  pounds.  The  sedilia,  erected  probably 
in  1308,  have  four  panels  below  their  carved  gables,  and  each 
panel  was  painted  with  the  figure  of  a  saint  or  a  king,  both  on 
the  inside  and  outside,  making  eight  in  all.  Some  of  the 
figures  may  still  be  seen.  Placed  so  near  the  altar,  it  was 
fitting  that  the  paintings  should  be  those  of  the  founders  of 
the  church  ;  and  standing  as  they  do  above  Sebert's  tomb, 
he  would  inevitably  find  a  place  there.  Hence  in  the  panels 
of  the  outside,  that  is  to  say,  those  which  look  down  into  the 
ambulatory,  were  Sebert  and  St  Peter,  Edward  the  Confessor 
and  St  John.  And  of  course  the  Confessor  was  depicted  in 
that  familiar  gesture  of  giving  his  ring  to  the  Apostle  in  the 
guise  of  a  beggar.  Of  the  four  figures  in  the  inside  panels, 
two  were  of  kings,  probably  Henry  and  his  immediate 
successor  Edward  I  ;  and  these  paintings  remain  clear.  They 
are  attributed  to  Master  Thomas,  son  of  Walter  of  Durham  ; 
but  may  even  have  been  by  Master  Walter  himself 
74 


THE    HOLY    PLACE 

The  beauty  of  the  sedilia  now  resides  mainly  in  their 
grace  and  proportion,  with  the  vigorous  detail  of  three  small 
carved  heads  placed  at  the  springing  of  the  gables.  But  when 
they  were  young  in  Abbey  time  the  gables  themselves  were 
filled  with  a  mosaic  of  red  glass  over  gold,  and  the  spandrils 
were  plated  with  blue  glass  over  silver.  The  mouldings 
were  gilded  and  the  hollows  between  them  were  stained  in 
scarlet. 

The  tombs  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  presbytery  are  of 
the  same  architectural  character  as  the  sedilia,  and  of  about  the 
same  period,  that  is,  the  first  decade  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
Though  Aveline  died  many  years  earlier  than  her  husband 
Edmund  Crouchback,  and  Aymer  de  Valence  did  not  die 
until  1326,  all  the  three  monuments  have  many  resemblances. 
They  have,  too,  much  the  air  of  one  composition,  which  they 
well  may  have  been  ;  and  of  all  the  lovely  Gothic  work  that 
the  Abbey  contains,  they  are  the  loveliest. 

The  smallest  of  the  three,  and  farthest  from  the  altar, 
is  that  of  Aveline.  In  its  sweet  grace  and  simplicity  it  is 
perhaps  the  most  charming ;  and  those  qualities  might  pos- 
tulate an  earlier  date  for  it.  But  we  reflect  in  time  that  a 
mere  woman,  even  though  she  was  a  great  beauty  and  a  great 
heiress,  could  not  hope  to  lie  so  close  to  the  altar,  nor  in  so 
magnificent  a  tomb,  as  men  and  warriors.  Besides,  the  differ- 
ence is  not  so  much  of  style  as  of  smaller  size ;  and  one  cannot 
therefore  argue  from  it  to  a  different  period  or  authorship. 

The  general  design  of  the  tombs  is,  indeed,  similar,  with 
pointed  canopies  in  stone  supported  by  columns  and   buttresses, 

75 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

a  carved  effigy  lying  below,  and  along  the  basement  of  each 
tomb  a  row  of  niches  occupied  by  little  figures.  These  are 
studies  of  the  relatives  or  mourners,  called  technically  '  weepers,' 
and  they  have  a  delightful  grace  and  vivacity.  Each  tomb  has 
a  trefoil  in  the  gable  of  the  canopy  and  richly  carved  foliation 
in  the  arches  ;  and  the  niches  below  each  effigy  are  of  the  same 
trefoiled  character,  six  of  them  for  Aveline,  eight  for  Aymer  de 
Valence,  and  ten  for  the  great  Richard  Crouchback. 

All  the  three  tombs  are  so  harmonious,  so  graceful,  and 
so  finely  executed  that  they  are  a  perpetual  joy.  In  their 
total  effect,  as  a  unity,  they  possess  the  intense  revealing 
power  that  great  art  always  has,  and  so  exalt  the  spirit.  But 
when  we  approach  a  little  nearer  and  examine  the  details, 
delight  is  added  to  exaltation.  Professor  Lethaby  says,  of 
the  mourners  on  the  middle  tomb,  that  of  Aymer  de  Valence : 
"  The  weepers  are  the  most  exquisite  small  sculptures  in 
England.  They  are  of  the  gayest  type,  and  show  close 
observation  of  character  and  gesture,  of  the  fashionable  fall 
of  mantles,  and  the  proper  way  to  hold  gloves,  and  are  as 
vividly  studied  as  Tanagra  figurines,  and  should  be  of  much 
more  concern  to  us."  And  the  reason  why  we  ought  to  be 
so  much  more  interested  in  them  is  that  they  were  carved  by 
an  English  artist,  representative  of  a  flourishing  native  school 
of  sculpture,  namely.  Master  Richard  of  Reading. 

The  tomb  of  Edmund  Crouchback  is  the  most  mag- 
nificent of  the  three,  with  its  triple  canopy,  its  elaborately 
foliated  arches,  and  its  eight  tall  pinnacles.  His  effigy,  which 
is  in  better  preservation  than  that  of  Aveline,  his  young  wife, 
76 


THE    HOLY    PLACE 

is  that  of  "the  perfect  knight."  He  is  clad  in  chain  armour, 
and  his  hands  are  folded  in  prayer.  There  is  a  splendid  lion 
-  at  his  feet,  emblem  of  royalty  no  doubt,  but  symbolizing  also 
that  the  spirit  has  now  put  off  its  animal  origin.  At  his 
head,  as  at  the  head  of  Aymer  de  Valence,  kneel  two  angels 
to  receive  and  bear  away  the  escaping  soul ;  but  on  the  tomb 
of  Aveline  the  angels  support  her  head ;  and  there  are  no 
beasts  at  her  feet.  In  the  trefoil  of  Edmund's  canopy,  as  in 
that  of  Aymer,  there  is  carved  in  high  relief,  and  with 
splendid  energy,  a  knight  in  full  armour  on  a  prancing  war- 
horse,  the  very  picture  he  used  in  one  of  his  seals. 

Yet  here  again,  as  with  the  sedilia  and  the  ancient 
retable,  we  have  to  imagine  the  most  brilliant  decoration 
covering  the  whole  work.  Effigy  and  basement,  gable,  but- 
tress and  pinnacle,  trefoil  and  spandril,  niche  and  little  carved 
weeper — all  were  wrought  upon  with  gesso  work  and  gilding, 
inlays  of  bright  glass  and  vivid  colouring.  With  these  in- 
comparable tombs,  the  golden  altar  frontal  and  the  glittering 
retable  and  sedilia,  the  Holy  Place  must  have  been  glorious 
indeed.  To  the  reverence  which  the  spot  itself  inspired  was 
added  the  exaltation  that  perfect  art  kindles  like  a  flame ; 
but  lest  these  should  be  too  lofty  and  austere  for  mere  human 
creatures,  they  were  played  upon  with  the  dancing  gaiety  of 
mood  which  gleams  from  colour  and  gold. 

There  was,  too,  another  lodestone  for  the  eye  of  the 
worshipping  beholder,  more  magnificent  still,  perhaps,  and 
certainly  more  powerfully  attractive  to  the  medieval  heart 
and   mind.     It   was,   of  course,    the    Shrine    of    Edward    the 

77 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Confessor.  Nowadays  the  shrine  is  hidden  by  the  tall 
screen  behind  the  altar,  itself  a  curiously  interesting  feature, 
of  literally  half  ancient  and  half  modern  structure,  with  the 
old  carving  visible  on  its  inner  side.  No  one  looking  from 
the  choir  would  suspect  the  existence  of  the  shrine  at  this 
spot,  so  completely  shut  off  is  it.  But  when  Henry  built  the 
church,  his  devotion  to  the  beloved  St  Edward  demanded 
that  his  shrine  should  be  the  supreme  object  in  it.  We  know 
as  a  fact  that  the  whole  idea  of  building  the  great  fabric 
germinated  from  the  idea  of  the  shrine ;  and  we  remember 
the  old  historian's  description  of  it,  as  a  candle  lifted  up  on 
high,  to  draw  all  eyes  to  it. 

The  shrine  was  placed  by  Henry  HI  on  the  site  where 
it  still  stands,  in  the  centre  of  the  St  Edward  Chapel, 
immediately  behind  the  high  altar.  Therefore,  as  the  old 
reredos  was  lower  than  the  existing  one,  the  shrine  was 
perfectly  visible  from  the  church  below.  To  see  it  now,  one 
must  go  round  to  the  back  of  the  ambulatory  and  ascend 
by  a  flight  of  steps  into  the  St  Edward  Chapel.  This  means 
of  approach  makes  it  a  little  hard  to  realize  at  first  that  the 
chapel  is  an  extension  of  the  presbytery  itself,  and  separated 
from  it  only  by  the  reredos.  Yet  an  effort  should  be  made 
to  grasp  the  fact ;  and  it  will  be  rewarded  not  only  by  the 
sense  that  one  is  recapturing  the  idea  of  the  designer,  but  by 
a  perception  of  the  unity  of  the  Holy  Place. 

The  whole  of  this  eastern  limb  of  the  church  is  thus 
seen  as  one  place,  not  only  in  the  planning  of  the  architect 
and    in    hallowing   associations,  but   in    its   design   as   a   relic 

78 


THE    HOLY    PLACE 

chapel  and  burial-place  of  kings,  and  very  largely  in  its 
scheme  of  decoration.  It  is  sometimes  called  the  Chapel  of 
the  Kings,  because  so  many  royal  persons  lie  here,  not  kings 
alone,  but  queens  and  princes  too ;  and  the  ancient  Corona- 
tion Stone  is  kept  here. 

The  Coronation  Chair  stands,  as  one  feels  that  it  should, 
quite  near  the  shrine.  It  faces  the  St  Edward  altar  at  the 
west  end  of  the  shrine  and  is  placed  against  the  back  of  the 
reredos :  it  is  therefore  immediately  behind  the  high  altar. 
The  old  sculpture  which  forms  the  back  of  the  reredos  is  that 
ancient  part  of  it  of  which  we  have  already  spoken,  its  outer 
side  that  looks  into  the  presbytery  having  been  made  anew 
with  modern  sculpture  and  mosaic.  But  on  this  side  the 
original  work  remains.  It  was  erected  about  1400;  and  the 
frieze  is  carved  in  a  series  of  scenes  from  the  Confessor's  life 
— his  birth  and  coronation,  the  remitting  of  the  Danegelt,  the 
forgiveness  of  the  thief,  his  miracles  and  visions  and  holy 
acts. 

But  the  carving  is  of  course  decayed  and  mutilated,  and 
like  the  historic  Chair  which  rests  against  it,  its  former  glory 
is  departed.  The  Coronation  Chair,  indeed,  is  very  dim  and 
grey,  and  would  appear  to  be  merely  a  commonplace  old  wooden 
arm-chair  if  it  were  not  for  something  curious  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  seat.  One's  eye  is  caught  by  that ;  and  there,  in  a 
sort  of  box  with  an  open  front,  is  that  travelled  and  historical 
and  tragic  thing,  the  Coronation  Stone  of  the  Scottish  kings. 
Edward  I  seized  it — he  too  betrayed  into  an  act  of  vandalism 
by  a  chance  to  satisfy  acquisitiveness  or  vanity.     Astonishingly 

79 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

varied  is  the  list  of  the  victims  of  this  lure !  Kings,  bishops, 
abbots,  choristers,  schoolboys  :  in  Abbey  history  each  has 
fallen  in  turn  to  this  popular  vice ;  and  is  it  not  written  that 
Pepys  once  kissed  the  poor  corpse  of  a  queen,  here  in  this 
very  church  calamitously  exposed  ? 

Edward  I,  then,  seized  the  Stone  of  Scone,  from  Scone 
Abbey  in  1296,  and  got  himself  crowned  King  of  Scotland  on 
it.  Some  time  afterward,  Bruce  begged  for  its  return.  The 
Stone  was  infinitely  precious  to  the  Scots,  not  only  because 
all  their  kings  had  been  crowned  upon  it,  but  from  its  sacred 
origin  and  its  remote  antiquity.  They  loved  it  for  the  sake  of 
their  country  and  their  kings,  and  they  held  it  in  profound 
veneration  for  its  prodigious  destiny.  They  called  it  the  Stone 
of  Fate.  It  had  been  their  Coronation  Chair  for  generations 
of  successive  kings,  but  that  was  the  least  part  of  its  sanctity. 
For  it  was  the  stone  on  which  the  patriarch  Jacob  had  laid  his 
head  when  he  saw  the  vision  of  angels  at  Beth-el.  Moses 
had  blessed  it,  in  Egypt,  with  promise  of  victory.  Brought  out 
of  Egypt  by  Scota,  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh,  it  had  travelled 
into  Galicia,  and  then  to  Spain.  From  Spain  to  Ireland  it 
went,  carried  about  as  sacred  relics  were  carried  by  the  devout 
in  those  days ;  and  from  Ireland  it  was  a  comparatively  short 
step  into  Scotland,  first  to  Argyllshire  and  thence  to  the  Abbey 
of  Scone. 

No  wonder  that  Bruce  appealed  for  its  return  ;  and  less 
wonder  if  the  English,  with  a  tardy  gleam  of  grace,  did  once 
contemplate  rendering  it  back.  There  is  extant  a  letter  of 
Edward  III  in  1328  ordering  the  Abbot  to  return  the  Stone, 
80 


THE    HOLY    PLACE 

according  to  a  decree  of  Parliament.  Nevertheless  the  Stone 
stayed  at  Westminster :  all  succeeding  kings  were  crowned 
on  it  (queens,  of  course,  had  a  humbler  crowning-seat),  and 
it  has  never  left  the  Abbey  since  it  was  brought  there — 
save  on  the  occasion  when  Oliver  Cromwell  was  installed 
Lord  Protector  of  England  upon  it,  in  Westminster  Hall. 
There  is  a  little  legend  of  ironic  import,  out  of  which  the 
Scots  seem  to  have  drawn  some  comfort.  It  was  to  the 
effect  that  their  King  Kenneth  had  caused  to  be  engraved 
on  the  Stone  a  couplet  which  ran  that  wherever  the  Stone 
should  reside  Scottish  kings  should  rule.  And  the  prophecy 
was  held  to  be  fulfilled  when  James  I  came  to  the  throne  of 
England.  Well,  human  nature  is  capable  of  extracting  solace 
from  strange  sources,  and  it  may  be  that  the  Scots  can 
detect  something  satisfactory  in  the  Stuart  rule.  Or  did  the 
triumph  lie  perchance  in  the  chastisement  which  that  rule 
brought  to  the  English  spoilers  ? 

The   Coronation   Chair,  as  we  saw,    is   of  wood,    though 
Edward  first  intended  to  make  it  in  bronze.     All  the  surface 
of  the   wood  was   originally   decorated.     It   was  covered  first 
with  a  layer  of  gesso,  then   gilded  all  over,   and  burnished ; 
and  finally  a  pattern  was  pricked  on  the  gold  surface.     The 
panels  of  the  exterior  were  filled  with  a  design  of  foliage — of 
thorn,  ivy,  and  vine :  the  inside  of  one  arm  had  a  pattern  of 
diaper,  and  of  the  other  arm,  birds  among  oak-leaves.     The 
gable   and   spandrils   were   decorated   with  sprays   painted  on 
gold  or  silver  trefoil,  and  covered  with  glass.     On  the  inside 
panel  of  the  back  was  the  picture  of  a  king,  probably  of  Edward 
F  8i 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

the  Confessor,  with  his  feet  resting  upon  a  lion.  At  each  side 
of  the  Chair  was  a  pinnacle  surmounted  by  a  leopard  ;  but  the 
lions  now  at  the  base  of  the  Chair  were  not  a  part  of  the 
original  work. 

But  all  that  beauty  has  faded  now ;  and  one  turns  from 
the  Chair  to  the  shrine  itself,  to  find  that  it  too  has  lost  its 
former  glory.  One  supposes  that  it  was  not  ever  of  such 
consummate  loveliness  of  form  as  the  tombs  of  the  presbytery  ; 
and  for  that  reason  ravage  and  spoliation  have  left  it,  not  tragic 
as  ruined  beauty  might  have. been,  but  only  pathetic.  So  they 
have  laid  upon  it  a  reverent  pall,  to  cover  some  of  its  scars. 

The  monument  was  originally  in  three  tiers,  consisting  of 
first,  a  marble  and  mosaic  basement.  This  was  substantially 
as  we  see  it  now,  with  its  three  trefoiled  niches  on  the  north 
and  south  sides  flanked  by  twisted  columns,  a  writhing  pillar 
at  each  corner  (one  is  now  missing),  and  the  whole,  pillars, 
niches,  and  frieze,  elaborately  patterned  in  a  beautiful  glass 
mosaic.  Above  the  basement  was  the  feretory,  or  shrine  proper, 
in  which  the  Confessor  was  actually  laid.  This  was  of  gold, 
and  in  niches  along  its  longer  sides  stood  golden  statues  of 
kings,  set  with  jewels.  The  topmost  tier  was  a  cornice  of 
rich  tabernacle  work ;  and  to  complete  the  shrine  an  altar 
was  placed  at  its  western  end,  guarded  by  two  tall  pillars. 

Only  the  basement  still  exists  of  the  original  monument  ; 
for  the  present  superstructure  is  a  wooden  erection  of  Queen 
Mary's  time,  to  replace  the  feretory  which  had  been  destroyed 
at  the  Dissolution.  The  three  deep  recesses  on  the  north  and 
south  sides  were  constructed  to  receive  the  sick  who  came 
82 


THE    HOLY    PLACE 

for  healing  at  the  tomb.     Placed  within  one  of  those  niches, 
the  unfortunate  would  be  as  close  as  it  was  possible  to  get 
to   the   holy   body   of    the   saint   which,    as    they    knew,    had 
miraculous    virtue.      The    glass    mosaic    covering    the    whole 
surface  was    inlaid   in    Purbeck   marble ;     and   an   inscription 
which  ran  round  the  upper  edge  attributed  this  work  to  Peter, 
citizen  of  Rome.     Peter  was  fellow  artist  with  that  Odericus 
(also  of  Rome)  who  laid  the  stone  mosaic  of  the  presbytery. 
Probably  it  was  he,  too,  who  wrought  the  lovely  mosaic  on 
the  tomb  of   Henry   III,  which   stands  on  the  north  side  of 
the  shrine.     One  has  but   to  glance   at   that  tomb  to  get  an 
idea  of  the  early  appearance  of  the  basement  of  the  shrine, 
and    to   realize  the   important    part    that    Italian    mosaic    art 
played   in  the  decoration  of  this,  the  innermost  sanctuary,  of 
our    Abbey.      Workmen    and    materials,    we    are    told,    were 
brought   to    England    from    Rome   about   the    year    1267,   by 
Abbot  Ware.     Odericus,  an  artist  in  the  stone  mosaic  known 
as  'opus  Alexandrinum,'  finished  the  pavement  of  the  presby- 
tery in  the  year  1268.     The  fragments  of  porphyry,  serpentine, 
and  palombino  which  he  used,  weaving  with  them  an  enduring 
pattern    in   the  groundwork  of  our  own   Purbeck,  were  spoil 
from   the   buildings   of    ancient    Rome.     Peter,    his    comrade, 
worked    in  the  Cosmati  branch  of  the  art — glass  mosaic :   he 
completed  the  basement  of  the  shrine  in  1269. 

The  shrine  as  finished  to  Henry's  design  must  have 
been  of  unimaginable  splendour.  A  constant  stream  of 
pilgrims  flocked  to  it,  and  travellers  from  other  countries  wrote 
in   terms   of   awe  at   its  magnificence.     One    recalls    Henry's 

83 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

frenzied  efforts  to  get  money  for  his  church  ;  and  then  one 
finds  an  inventory,  drawn  up  when  the  prodigal  King  was 
compelled  on  one  occasion  to  pawn  the  treasures  of  the  Abbey, 
which  helps  us  to  a  dim  idea  of  the  immense  riches  of  the 
place.  Here  is  a  part  of  the  list,  consisting  of  images  from 
St  Edward's  Shrine ;  and  it  will  be  remembered  in  reading 
that  each  was  in  gold,  and  that  money  then  was  of  many 
times  the  value  that  it  is  to-day: 

St  Edmund,   King.     Crown  set  with  two  large  sapphires,  a  ruby, 

and  other  precious  stones,  worth  ^86. 
A  king,  with  a  ruby  on  his  breast,  and  other  stones,  ^48. 
A  king,   holding   in  his   right  hand  a    flower,    with   sapphires   and 

emeralds  in  the  middle  of  the  crown,  and  a  great  garnet  on  the 

breast,  ^56  4s.  4d. 
A  king,  with  a  garnet  in  his  breast,  and  other  stones,  ^52. 
A  king,  with  sapphires  in  his  breast,  etc.,  ^59  6s.  8d. 
Five  golden  angels,  ^30. 
Blessed  Virgin  and  Child,   set  with  rubies,  emeralds,  and  garnets, 

;^200. 
A  king,  holding  the  shrine,  with  precious  stones,  ;^I03. 
A  king,  holding  in  one  hand  a  cameo,  and  in  the  other  a  sceptre  set 

with  rubies,  prasinis,  and  pearls,  ^100. 
St   Peter,   holding  in   one  hand  a  church,    in   the  other  the   keys, 

trampling  upon  Nero,  with  a  large  sapphire  in  his  breast,  ^100. 
A  Majesty  with  an  emerald  in  the  breast,  ;^200. 

Doubtless  these  were  the  statues  set  about  the  golden 
feretory  in  which  the  Confessor's  body  lay.  The  Majesty, 
and  the  Virgin  with  Child,  would  be  placed  at  either  end : 
St  Peter  trampling  upon  Nero  was,  of  course,  the  patron 
saint  of  the  Abbey  ;  and  the  king  holding  a  model  of  the 
84 


THE    HOLY    PLACE 

shrine  could  be  no  other  than  the  author  of  it,  Henry  IH, 
The  other  statues  would  be,  fittingly,  of  sainted  English  kings, 
one  of  whom,  St  Edmund,  is  precisely  named. 

One  begins  to  have  an  idea  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
vast  sums  accumulated  by  Henry  were  spent ;  and  finally  one 
accepts  the  modern  computation  that  the  shrine  must  have 
cost  not  less  than  ;^8o,ooo.  All  these  riches,  however,  were 
plundered  at  the  time  of  the  Dissolution  :  not,  it  is  asserted, 
under  Cromwell,  who  did  the  Abbey  no  harm. 

We  remember  that  the  body  of  the  Confessor  was  trans- 
lated into  this  shrine  on  October  i8th,  1269,  on  the  day  when 
the  Mass  was  first  celebrated  by  the  monks  in  the  new  church. 
But  twice  before  that  date  the  body  had  been  disturbed.  In 
iioi,  when  Gilbert  Crispin,  Abbot,  wished  to  determine  some 
theological  point  concerning  chastity  and  corruption,  he  ordered 
the  tomb  to  be  opened.  And  lo !  great  triumph  for  the 
sacrilegious  polemical  Abbot,  for  the  chaste  King  was  found 
to  be  incorrupt.  The  fact  was  sufficiently  impressive,  one 
would  think ;  but  it  did  not  deter  Bishop  Gandulph  from 
trying  to  tear  out  a  hair  of  Edward's  long  yellow  beard. 
One  rejoices  to  learn  that  he  did  not  succeed. 

Again,  in  1163,  at  the  date  of  Edward's  canonization, 
when  the  body  was  transferred  to  another  tomb,  it  was  found 
untouched  by  decay.  On  this  occasion  it  was  the  Abbot  who, 
despoiling  the  poor  body,  drew  from  the  finger  that  renowned 
ring  which  was  sent  back  to  Edward  from  Paradise  by  his 
beloved  St  John.  Finally  came  the  uplifting  into  the  mag- 
nificent new   shrine   made   by    Henry  HI ;  and  thenceforward 

85 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

for  nearly  three  hundred  years  the  harassed  bones  had  rest. 
But  in  1539,  at  Henry  VIII's  Dissolution,  the  feretory  was 
destroyed,  the  basement  pulled  down,  and  all  the  treasure 
carried  oft".  It  is  not  clear  where  the  Confessor's  body  was 
then  laid  :  but  some  say  it  was  placed  below  the  ground  where 
the  shrine  stood.  In  1555  the  shrine  was  reconstructed  by 
Queen  Mary,  and  the  body  of  the  saint  once  more  laid  within 
it.     It  lies  there  still. 

When  James  II  was  crowned,  and  the  usual  forest  of 
destructive  scaffolding  was  erected,  a  part  of  it  broke  a  hole  in 
the  Confessor's  wooden  coffin.  The  head  of  the  King  was  once 
more  seen,  "  firm  and  whole  " ;  whereupon  the  vandal  of  that 
particular  epoch  inserted  his  hand  among  the  bones  and  drew 
out  the  King's  crucifix  and  chain.  They  were  both  of  pure  gold, 
and  the  crucifix  was  richly  adorned.  So  they  were  presented 
to  the  King — but  where  they  are  now,  no  soul  knows,  for 
James  II  lost  them  in  a  hurried  flight  from  England  in  1683. 

Here,  then,  in  a  shrine  which  has  been  shorn  and  maimed, 
lie  the  rifled  bones  of  Edward,  king  and  saint.  They  were  the 
supreme  relic  of  this  relic  chapel,  the  seed  from  which  the 
church  itself  sprang,  the  lodestar  of  countless  pilgrimages,  the 
object  of  infinite  devotion,  the  confident  hope  of  the  sick,  the 
inspiration  of  the  warrior,  the  adoration  of  the  devout.  The 
shrine  in  which  they  lay  was  like  a  jewel  in  an  exquisite 
setting :  one  of  the  world's  marvels,  lauded  with  a  kind  of 
awe  by  travelled  persons  who  could  compare  it  with  famous 
masterworks.  The  spot  on  which  it  stands  is  the  holiest 
in  the  Abbey,  the  starting-point  of  the  English  race  and  the 
86 


THE    HOLY    PLACE 

heart  of  their  religion.  It  came  in  time  to  be  encircled  by 
the  tombs  of  monarchs,  whose  prime  aspiration  was  to  lie  in 
death  near  the  great  Confessor.  It  gathered  to  itself  things 
infinitely  precious — the  Coronation  Stone,  torn  from  a  proud 
and  warlike  nation  ;  and  relics  brought  reverently  and  with 
immense  difficulty  from  distant  lands.  Fragments  of  ancient 
Rome  are  embedded  in  its  pavement ;  the  hands  and  the 
brains  of  many  skilled  craftsmen  and  artists  of  divers  nations 
have  given  of  their  best  to  beautify  it ;  and  kings  have  brought 
incalculable  treasure  to  it.  And  always,  from  the  day  of  that 
first  translation  of  the  saint,  a  stream  of  prayer  has  ascended 
near  this  spot,  binding  it,  if  so  we  can  believe,  "with  gold 
chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 

Surely,  therefore,  the  shrine  must  be  the  most  living  thing 
within  the  Abbey  ?  Surely  it  is  the  dearest  and  most  sacred  ? 
So  one  challenges  oneself,  surprised  to  find  that  it  is  not  so. 
Standing  before  it,  one  marvels  at  the  fact  that  the  shrine 
brings  no  such  tide  of  exaltation  into  the  mind  as  flows  from 
the  tombs  beside  the  high  altar.  It  is  dead  by  comparison. 
By  an  effort  one  can  grasp  something  of  the  profound  sig- 
nificance of  it ;  one  grows  sensible  of  its  impressiveness  :  one 
realizes  that  it  has  dignity  and  must  once  have  had  grandeur 
and  magnificence.  Yet  one  is  still  left  cold.  It  would  appear 
that  there  is  no  life  here,  to  kindle  life  in  us. 

One  speculates  a  little  on  the  reason  for  this  experience. 
Is  it  that  we  are  more  closely  akin  to  the  native  Gothic  art? 
Is  it  the  ravage  that  the  monument  has  suffered  ?  Is  it  the 
specific   basilica   design,   which  in  its  severe  lines  appeals  to 

87 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

an  intellectual  rather  than  an  aesthetic  appreciation  ?  Or  is 
it  that  this  very  form  is  one  which,  subconsciously  perhaps, 
reminds  us  of  a  dead  empire,  a  dead  civilization,  a  dead  world  ? 
Probably  for  none  of  those  reasons,  though  one  remembers  at 
Rome  itself  that  oppressive  sense  of  Death.  More  likely,  it 
may  be,  the  reason  simply  is  that  the  creator  of  the  shrine 
did  not  achieve  a  consummate  work.  Whether  it  was  some 
vice  of  alloy  in  Peter,  citizen  of  Rome,  marring  the  single 
desire  for  beauty ;  or  whether  it  was  some  vice  of  motive  in 
Henry  the  King,  zealous  for  mere  magnificence — something 
there  was  which  quenched  at  the  source  the  creative  joy 
which,  once  wrought  into  perfect  shape,  endures  so  long  as 
any  fragment  remains  of  the  shape  itself. 


88 


CHAPTER  VI :    "  We  Traise  Thee, 
0  Lord  " 

WE  said,  when  we  were  trying  to  pay  the  small  tribute 
of  comprehension  to  Henry  the  Third's  purpose  and 
achievement,  that  we  should  presently  salute  his 
workmen.  We  shall  do  that  now,  honoured  in  the  opportunity 
of  calling  for  a  moment  out  of  the  crowded  dark  the  names  of 
some  English  craftsmen.  For  by  these  men  Henry's  design 
was  accomplished  :  they  gave  to  his  idea  an  enduring  body . 
and  the  fabric  of  the  Abbey,  intensely  alive  as  it  is  with  the 
most  precious  because  most  vital  things,  grew  out  of  their 
lives,  stone  by  lovely  stone  springing  responsive  to  rectitude 
and  loyalty.  Because  these  men  loved  their  job  well  enough 
to  put  their  soul  into  it  (which  implies,  of  course,  more  than  one 
can  stop  to  say  of  humane  conditions  of  labour,  and  social 
amenity)  the  form  of  the  Abbey  is  made  from  the  happy  souls 
of  men ;  and  that  is  why  it  is  such  a  joyous  place  that  you 
always  want  to  sing  as  you  walk  round  it.  Diapered  wall  and 
airily  springing  arch,  slender  shaft  and  mighty  pier  and  windows 
like  a  benediction,  fragile  remnant  of  sculpture  and  vanishing 
outline  of  old  painting — they  are  all  singing  together  a  song  of 
delight  in  their  own  existence,  that  Te  Deum  which  one  would 
suppose  must  be  the  most  acceptable  praise  to  the  Author  of 
existence. 

There  is  a  book  which  deals  at  length  with  this  subject  of 
Abbey  craftsmen ;  and  in  a  handsome  and  generous  spirit. 
Perhaps  it  is  even  a  little  too  generous  in  its  ascriptions  to 
native  authorship;  but  no  one  is  likely  to  quarrel  with  it  on 

89 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

that  account,  seeing  that  never  before  has  the  English  work 
in  the  Abbey  received  its  meed  of  recognition.  The  book 
represents  almost  the  first  attempt  to  search  for,  identify,  and 
give  credit  to  native  artists  and  craftsmen  ;  and  it  is  full  of 
interesting  fact  and  quaint  detail  which  illuminate  that 
medieval  world.  So  that  we  get  from  it  not  only  an  occasional 
ray  thrown  on  the  social  scene,  as,  for  example,  when  Henry 
takes  wine  with  his  Mason,  and,  finding  it  good,  arranges  an 
exchange  with  him  of  several  barrels,  but  an  exact  presentment 
of  the  economics  of  Abbey  construction.  To  that  book,  then, 
with  thanks  to  the  author.  Professor  Lethaby,  we  go  for  our 
information  about  the  old  workmen. 

The  material  is  much  too  copious  to  attempt  even  the 
outline  of  a  complete  survey.  Neither  could  one  attain  the 
precision  of  fact,  nor  the  completeness  of  reference,  which  are 
possible  in  a  book  devoted  entirely  to  the  subject.  Still  less 
is  it  possible  to  reproduce  the  cumulative  effect  on  the  mind 
of  these  masses  of  detail — not  arid  and  wearisome  as  statistics 
easily  can  be,  but  stimulating  the  imagination  to  a  vision  of 
cheery  and  hearty  busyness  right  through  the  social  scale,  with 
everybody  doing  his  bit  of  work,  from  the  King,  eager,  in- 
formed, purposeful,  fertile  in  resource,  accessible  and  friendly, 
to  the  clerk  and  the  master  of  the  works,  the  master  mason, 
the  master  carpenter,  the  painters  and  sculptors,  the  goldsmiths 
and  metal-workers,  the  stone-layers  and  plumbers  and  task- 
workers — all  intent,  whether  consciously  or  subconsciously, 
on  their  great  constructive  effort. 

We  shall  gather,  however,  some  interesting  fragments 
90 


"WE    PRAISE    THEE,    O    LORD" 

from  these  data :  taking,  that  is  to  say,  facts  about  men  whose 
work  not  only  remains  and  is  susceptible  of  identification, 
but  which  has  a  special  appeal  to  us,  whether  from  its  charm 
or  its  associations. 

But,  at  the  outset,  there  is  one  step  to  be  taken  away  from 
this  authority,  and  it  is  that  which  concerns  the  name  of 
supreme  interest — the  first  architect  of  the  Abbey.  Now  there 
is  a  certain  'Master  Henry'  mentioned  in  the  early  records: 
he  appears  as  the  Master  Mason,  and  receives  his  robe  of  office, 
in  1243.  Professor  Lethaby,  for  cogent  reasons,  expressly 
designates  him  "  Master  Henry  of  Westminster','  thus  claiming 
him  as  an  Englishman.  But  the  "of  Westminster"  is  an 
addition  of  his  own,  frankly  deduced  from  the  fact  that  the 
first  architect  was  not  described  in  the  records  hitherto  known, 
as  belonging  to  any  special  place  such  as,  for  example,  Robert 
of  Beverley.  He  was  simply  and  always  '  Master  Henry.' 
Inasmuch,  therefore,  as  craftsmen  from  other  places  were 
always  distinguished  by  the  name  of  their  town,  it  was  inferred 
that  Henry  was  a  Londoner ;  and  more  closely,  since  ability 
of  every  kind  gravitated  toward  the  King,  that  he  was  of 
Westminster.  It  is  a  deduction  which,  one  would  think, 
might  be  safely  drawn  from  the  available  data.  Unhappily, 
however,  it  falls  to  the  ground  at  the  approach  of  newly 
emerged  facts.  For,  as  we  saw  in  another  chapter,  the  Rev. 
H.  F.  Westlake,  the  Custodian  of  the  Abbey,  has  unearthed 
an  old  entry  dated  1255  which  proves  to  the  satisfaction  of 
archaeologists  that  this  first  King's  Mason  was  a  French- 
man,  Henry   of    Rheims.     Yet,    after  all,    why    use   the  word 

91 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

'unhappily'?  It  is  quite  inapt.  And  to  begin  a  survey  of 
English  craftsmen  with  a  French  name  is  not  so  anomalous 
as  it  might  appear  to  be.  For  not  only  did  Henry's  French 
ideas  create  a  building  which,  thanks  to  the  native  workmen, 
is  a  compound  of  the  best  of  both  nations ;  but  Henry  himself 
seems  to  have  become  anglicized  to  the  extent  of  settling  and 
leaving  heirs  in  this  country. 

Henry  of  Rheims,  then,  first  architect  of  the  Abbey,  is 
heard  of  in  an  official  capacity  in  1244,  when  "  Master  Henry 
the  Mason  "  was  sent  to  York  to  advise  about  the  fortification 
of  the  castle  there.  Matthew  of  Paris  says  that  work  on  the 
Abbey  was  begun  in  1245;  and  in  1246  our  architect  acquired 
two  messuages  at  Westminster,  the  deed  for  which  is  still  in 
existence  at  the  Record  Office.  This  fact  suggests  that  the 
rule  for  the  master  mason  to  be  a  householder  was  already  in 
force :  a  person  entrusted  with  so  important  and  lengthy  an 
operation  must  needs  be  established  and  responsible — there 
might  be  no  flitting  away  with  the  job  only  half  done,  and 
commitments  everywhere  for  material  and  labour.  In  1248 
the  official  Roll  of  Accounts  mentions  Magister  Henricus, 
Cementarius  ;  and  in  the  following  year  Master  Henry  received 
to  pay  for  task-work  (which  is  piece-work)  ^t.^  13s.  4d.  The 
wages  of  skilled  workmen  at  this  period  were  is.  lod.  per  week  : 
of  other  workmen  and  clerks  gd.  per  week.  In  1251  the  ardent 
King  became  impatient  with  the  progress  of  building,  and 
ordered  his  chief  architect  to  hurry  up  the  marble  work :  also 
he  considered  that  the  number  of  men  employed  upon  the 
church  should  be  increased  to  six  or  eight  hundred. 
92 


"WE    PRAISE    THEE,    O    LORD" 

It  is  evident  that  Master  Henry's  office  was  no  light  one, 
and  he  seems  to  have  filled  it  for  nearly  ten  years,  till  the  end 
of  1253.  One  can  hardly  grasp  the  magnitude  of  his  task; 
but  the  Abbey  itself  proclaims  it.  What  can  be  said  about 
this  giant  who,  in  addition  to  the  artist's  vision  and  the 
scientist's  patient  planning  of  the  great  edifice,  actually  directed 
the  building  of  a  very  great  part  of  it  ?  Nothing  adequate 
can  be  said  ;  but  his  work  lives  after  him,  and  he  in  it. 

John  of  Gloucester  followed,  described  as  "king  of 
masonry  in  these  realms "  because  of  his  important  work  at 
Gloucester,  Woodstock,  and  Westminster.  He  reigned  until  his 
death  in  1261  ;  and  received,  as  did  all  the  '  Master '  craftsmen, 
furred  robes  of  office  twice  a  year.  John  is  the  hero  of  the 
King's  wine-drinking  episode,  already  mentioned ;  and  of 
another.  For  on  a  certain  occasion  he  seems  to  have  bought 
wine  from  the  royal  cellars,  and  to  have  forgotten  to  pay  for  it. 
Whereupon  the  Sheriff  of  Gloucester,  official  and  meticulous, 
prepared  to  seize  John's  property  in  forfeit ;  but  was  checked  in 
time  by  a  command  from  the  King  "  not  to  distrain  John  le 
Macun."  He  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  a  prime  favourite 
of  Henry  the  Third,  which  is  creditable  no  less  to  him  than 
to  the  King ;  and  implies  a  great  deal  regarding  John's 
artistic  capability.  He  possessed  already  house  property  in 
Westminster:  yet  in  1258  we  find  the  King  presenting  him 
with  certain  other  houses,  in  recognition  of  his  services.  He 
carried  forward  the  work  begun  by  Henry  of  Rheims  in  the 
Abbey,  pressing  it  with  the  utmost  speed,  as  the  King  desired  ; 
but  he  did  not  live  to  see  its  completion.     During  his  time 

93 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

the   wages   paid   to   ordinary   workmen   averaged    2s.    2d.    per 
week. 

He  was  succeeded  in  1 262  by  Robert  of  Beverley,  by  whom 
the  fabric  was  finished.  The  last  account  of  payments  for  labour 
on  Henry's  church  was  vouched  for  by  Robert  in  the  year  1272, 
when  the  King  died.  It  was  for  such  finishing  work  as  paint- 
ing, glazing,  etc.  The  King  did  not  leave  his  Mason  without 
resources  after  his  task  was  over ;  but  provided  a  certain  daily 
sum  to  be  paid  to  him  for  a  year ;  and  after  Henry's  death, 
Edward  I  made  his  father's  Mason  a  present  of  wine,  and 
engaged  him  on  other  royal  works. 

These,  then,  were  the  three  architects  (King's  Masons) 
responsible  for  the  actual  building  of  the  Abbey.  There  were 
many  others  engaged  later ;  but  it  is  not  possible  here  to  name 
more  than  two  or  three  of  them.  There  was  Richard  Crundale, 
who  came  from  a  village  in  Kent  and  became  citizen  of  London 
and  King's  Mason  about  the  year  1281.  He  it  is  to  whom 
we  owe  the  beautiful  tomb  of  Oueen  Eleanor  in  King-  Edward's 
Chapel.  He  is  said  to  have  designed  the  Eleanor  Crosses 
(they  were  sculptured  by  another  hand)  and  to  have  super- 
intended the  erection  of  the  most  important  one,  at  Charing. 

Michael  of  Canterbury  came  next,  in  1292  ;  and  his  name 
is  written  in  the  Abbey  in  most  lovely  characters — if,  as  it 
is  believed,  he  built  the  exquisite  tombs  of  Edmund  Crouchback 
and  his  wife  Aveline,  and  probably  that  of  Aymer  de  Valence. 
For  certain  work  which  he  did  at  St  Stephen's  Chapel  he  seems 
to  have  been  paid  3s.  6d.  a  week. 

There  ensues  a  pause  in  Abbey-building  of  nearly  a 
94 


"WE    PRAISE    THEE,    O    LORD" 

hundred  years  ;  and  the  next  King's  Mason  to  appear  is  Henry 
Yevele,  in  1388.  This  is  he  who  built  the  nave  of  the  church  ; 
and  who,  great  architect  and  modest  man,  continued  loyally 
the  style  of  the  first  designer  when  he  planned  his  own  work, 
thus  making  of  Westminster  a  rare  example  of  harmony.  He 
had  a  long  and  busy  career,  serving  the  Crown  as  Master 
Mason  in  three  reigns.  There  is  an  entry  of  100  shillings 
per  annum  paid  to  Master  Yevele ;  plus,  for  his  dress  and 
furs,  15s. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  recount  all  the  fruitful  activity 
of  Yevele,  and  how  he  prospered  and  lived  to  an  honoured 
age.  And  if  the  planning  of  the  nave  seems  too  big  and 
abstract  a  thing  for  an  incorrigible  love  of  the  concrete  to 
cling  to,  it  is  always  possible  to  go  and  look  at  the  tomb 
of  the  famous  Langham,  and  murmuring  there  the  name  of 
Master  Henry  Yevele,  pay  thus  our  tribute  to  two  great  men. 

We  must  pass  over  for  the  moment  Robert  Vertue,  the 
supposed  architect  of  the  Lady  Chapel  of  Henry  VII,  to 
speak  of  him  in  a  proper  place.  And  the  only  other  im- 
portant King's  Mason  who  then  remains  to  be  mentioned  is 
Thomas  Mapilton,  who  came  to  Westminster  from  Durham 
about  the  year  14 16. 

On  Mapilton  we  must  pause  a  moment,  because  he  was  the 
author  of  the  romantic  Chantry  Chapel  of  Henry  V,  which  suits 
so  well  with  the  career  and  character  of  that  romantic  King. 
We  have  not  glanced  at  this  work  yet  because,  although  it 
stands  in  St  Edward's  Chapel,  and  belongs  in  intention  to  the 
circle  of  tombs  which  surround  the  shrine,  in    reality  it  is  a 

95 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

thing  apart;  and  this  not  in  position  merely.  Its  date  is  1422, 
and  it  is  therefore  about  a  century  and  a  half  later  than  the 
shrine.  That  naturally  implies  a  vast  difference  in  the  spirit 
and  style  of  the  work  ;  but  the  contrast  between  it  and  the 
chief  masterpieces  of  the  St  Edward  Chapel  is  something  more 
than  a  change  of  fashion.  There  is  between  them  the  radical 
unlikeness  that  goes  down  to  their  origin  in  different  races. 
It  is  summed  up  in  the  very  names  of  the  respective  authors. 
The  classical  lines  of  the  shrine  and  its  brilliant  geometrical 
mosaic  of  the  Cosmati  School  are  all  implicit  in  the  signature 
which  the  artist  put  round  the  edge  :  "  Peter  Citizen  of  Rome." 
And  the  springing  fretted  turrets  of  the  Chantry,  its  many 
sculptured  figures,  and  even  its  stout  iron  grille  (though  that 
was  by  another  hand)  are  all  crowded  into  the  words  "Thomas 
Mapilton,  King's  Mason  at  Westminster." 

But  Henry  V's  Chantry  is  literally  a  thing  apart  from  the 
shrine — a  fact  which  has  some  poignance  when  we  know  how 
earnestly  Henry  desired  that  his  tomb  should  be  a  part  of  the 
Confessor's  monument.  Glance  for  a  moment  at  the  illus- 
tration facing  page  8.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  choir,  as  it 
comes  in  procession  out  of  the  Lady  Chapel  of  Henry  VII,  is 
passing  under  a  bridge  that  spans  the  back  of  the  ambulatory. 
That  bridge  supports  the  Chantry  of  Henry  V,  which  is  there- 
fore not  on  a  level  with  the  shrine  at  all,  but  raised  one  storey 
above  it.  A  further  point  should  be  observed  before  leaving 
the  illustration.  At  the  foot  of  the  steps  down  which  the 
singing  boys  are  walking  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting  spot, 
archaeological ly,  in  the  whole  Abbey.  For  it  is  the  junction  of 
96 


':i^"*5''^;!il^ 


"WE    PRAISE    THEE,    O    LORD" 

three  great  works,  those  of  Henry  III,  1269;  of  Henry  V, 
1422;  and  of  Henry  VII,  1512.  Thus  one  of  those  boys 
might  put  out  a  hand  and  touch,  in  passing,  three  ages  of  our 
history,  three  important  epochs  of  Abbey  construction  and 
Gothic  art — besides  the  many  generations  of  the  workmen's 
toil.  And  nowhere  in  the  Abbey  is  that  song  of  praise  we 
spoke  about  more  joyful  than  it  is  here. 

When  Henry  V  was  about  to  start  upon  the  doubtful 
adventure  of  Agincourt,  he  made  his  will  and  left  directions 
for  his  entombment.  And  though  that  great  adventure  ended 
happily,  the  directions  were  followed  out  not  many  years  after, 
when  in  1422  the  King  died  at  Vincennes.  He  had  aspired  to 
burial  in  St  Edward's  Chapel,  and  as  near  the  shrine  as 
possible.  But  the  spaces  were  already  filled :  the  royal  circle 
round  Edward's  bones  was  complete.  Nevertheless,  a  King 
who  was  not  to  be  daunted  in  winning  from  the  land  of  his  foes 
their  most  beautiful  princess,  had  no  intention  of  being  baffled 
in  the  matter  of  a  tomb.  So  he  left  directions  for  a  chantry  to 
be  built,  and  bequeathed  enough  money  for  the  endowment  of 
three  monks  to  say  masses  daily  for  his  soul.  Master  Thomas 
Mapilton,  then  established  for  several  years  at  Westminster,  set 
about  the  execution  of  the  royal  will.  He  could  not  have  been 
responsible  for  the  carved  work  which  is  so  plentiful  about  the 
chantry :  for  the  sculptors  of  the  time  did  that ;  but  the  very 
ingenious  contriving  of  the  whole  chapel,  the  combined  lightness 
and  strength  of  the  building,  and  its  effect  of  romantic  grace 
and  mystery,  are  his  achievement. 

The  reliquary  which  formerly  stood  at  the  eastern  end  of 
G  97 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

St  Edward's  Chapel  was  removed,  with  its  altar,  to  the  space 
between  the  shrine  and  the  tomb  of  Henry  III.  Two  turrets 
were  put  up,  on  the  north  and  south  sides  of  the  space  so  left ; 
a  bridge  was  thrown  across  them,  carried  over  the  ambulatory 
by  two  arches,  and  the  Chantry  Chapel  was  erected  upon  it. 
Whatever  one  may  think  about  the  chantry  in  detail — that  it  is 
perhaps  a  little  too  florid,  and  that  its  sculpture  is  not  the 
noblest  in  the  Abbey — there  can  be  no  doubt  that  its  design  and 
construction  are  a  triumph  :  and  the  position  is  superb.  When 
by  a  favour  one  is  allowed  to  climb  the  dangerously  worn  steps 
of  the  north  turret  into  the  chapel,  one  gets  an  unimpeded  view 
of  the  whole  length  of  the  church,  over  the  shrine  and  the  high 
altar  and  the  choir  screen,  right  down  to  the  western  windows, 
with  triforium  and  clerestory  soaring  above.  The  view  is 
probably  unequalled,  and  it  gives,  as  no  other  aspect  of  the 
interior  does,  a  sense  of  its  noble  proportion  and  harmony. 

In  the  chapel  under  the  altar  lies  Katherine,  the  French 
princess  whom  Henry  won  for  his  queen.  She  did  not  always 
rest  in  this  her  own  place,  but  lay  first  in  the  old  Lady  Chapel. 
When  Henry  VII  pulled  down  the  Lady  Chapel  to  build  his 
new  one,  Katherine's  coffin  was  perforce  removed ;  and  it 
would  seem  to  have  been  broken  in  the  process.  For  we  hear 
of  it,  placed  beside  the  tomb  of  her  husband  below  the 
chantry,  with  the  upper  part  of  the  Queen's  body  visible. 
Thus  it  remained  for  about  270  years ;  and  it  must  have  been 
on  this  spot  that  Pepys  succumbed  to  vanity  and  greed  of 
sensation.  In  1669  he  has  an  entry  that  he  saw  "  the  body 
of  Queene  Katherine  of  Valois,  and  I  had  the  upper  part  of 
98 


"WE    PRAISE    THEE,    O    LORD" 

her  body  in  my  hands  and  I  did  kiss  her  mouth,  reflecting 
upon  it  that  I  did  kiss  a  Queene,  and  that  this  was  my  birth- 
day 36  years  old  that  I  did  kiss  a  Queene."  In  1776  Katherine 
was  buried  in  the  Chapel  of  St  Nicholas  ;  but  it  was  not 
until  the  nineteenth  century  that  she  was  removed  to  this 
her  rightful  place.  Dean  Stanley  placed  her  tomb  here 
in  1878. 

The  tomb  of  Henry  V  himself  lies  below  his  chantry,  in 
that  small  enclosed  space  between  the  turrets  which  was 
formerly  the  site  of  the  reliquary.  The  tomb  is  guarded  by 
a  strong  grille  of  fine  smith's  work,  made  by  Roger  Johnson 
of  London.  But  stout  as  it  is,  it  did  not  prevent  the  ravagers. 
For  on  the  Purbeck  marble  basement  lies  now  a  mere 
wooden  block,  which  once  was — "a  royal  image,  like  himself, 
of  silver  and  gilt,  which  was  made  at  the  cost  of  Queen 
Katherine."  The  head  has  completely  vanished.  On  a  bar 
above  the  tomb  hang  certain  accoutrements,  very  doubtfully 
said  to  have  been  worn  by  the  warrior-king  at  Agincourt — 
his  shield,  a  tilting-helmet,  and  a  saddle. 

The  stonework  of  the  chantry  is  richly  sculptured  over 
its  whole  surface.  Above  the  altar  are  seven  canopied  niches, 
each  filled  (except  the  central  one)  with  its  carved  figure  of 
a  king  or  a  saint.  The  turrets  are  fretted  and  niched  with 
ogee  canopies  for  little  carved  figures,  many  of  which  are  gone. 
Above  each  turret  door  is  a  large  figure,  representing  the 
Confessor  and  St  John  ;  and  the  arches  which  span  the 
ambulatory  are  topped  by  an  elaborate  carved  frieze  which 
has    a    gay    processional    effect.     The    whole    work    has    the 

99 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

peculiar  charm  of  its  period,  representing  the  luxuriant  fancy 
of  the  age  just  as  it  does  the  romantic  character  of  the 
King. 

But  to  return  to  our  craftsmen.  We  find  that  there  were 
at  W^estminster  during  Henry  Ill's  time  flourishing  'schools' 
in  various  arts  and  crafts.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  culture  centre, 
radiating  outward  from  the  King  (who  was,  so  to  speak, 
a  collector  of  artists)  far  beyond  the  limits  of  Westminster 
itself.  Thus  there  was  a  School  of  Sculpture  centred  at  the 
Abbey  which  must  have  trained  and  given  occupation  to  a 
great  many  workmen,  for  it  supplied  not  only  the  carved  work 
required  in  the  Abbey  itself,  but  images  for  other  churches 
which  the  busy  King  happened  to  be  building  or  rebuilding 
at  that  time.  Not  that  Westminster  was  the  only  school  of 
the  kind :  there  were  others,  at  Gloucester,  at  Nottingham, 
at  Corfe.     But  the  impulse  came  from  the  centre. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  masons.  But  indeed  most 
of  them  were  sculptors  too,  for  the  arts  were  not  depart- 
mentalized in  medieval  times.  The  mason  could  carve,  and 
the  sculptor  could  plan  and  construct  a  building.  Hence  names 
in  our  first  list  may  be  found  in  the  second,  and  frequently 
the  mason  and  the  sculptor  worked  together  upon  the 
same  task. 

John  of  St  Albans  was  King's  Sculptor  in  the  year 
1257-8,  when  Henry  Ill's  great  work  was  being  completed. 
He  is  described  as  "  Sculptor  of  the  King's  Images,"  and  it 
is  recorded  that  he  duly  received  his  robe  of  office.  While 
it  is  difficult  to  point  to  any  complete  work  in  the  Abbey 
100 


"WE    PRAISE    THEE,    O    LORD" 

and  say  that  it  was  done  by  John,  all  the  remains  of  earliest 
carving  may  be  associated  with  him.  Mutilated  and  mouldered 
though  they  are,  the  work  still  has  great  beauty,  and  its  interest 
is  intense.  There  is  not  much  of  it ;  but  if  we  go  into 
St  Faith's  Chapel  and  look  up  at  the  corbel-heads  we  shall 
see  some  vigorous  work  which  probably  came  from  the  hand 
of  this  old  carver.  There  are,  on  the  north  side,  a  lady's 
head,  the  head  of  a  negro,  and  two  grotesques  ;  and  three  other 
heads  on  the  opposite  side  in  the  recess.  Unfortunately,  most 
of  the  work  attributable  to  John  of  St  Albans  is  so  high  up  as 
to  be  almost  out  of  range.  It  had  at  any  rate  to  be  out  of 
reach,  or  it  would  not  have  escaped  the  destroying  hand  of  the 
monument-maker.  But  if  one  cranes  one's  neck  sufficiently  it 
is  possible  to  see,  high  in  the  transepts,  the  figures  of  censing 
angels  swinging  thuribles  ;  and  to  see  them  is  worth  a  great 
deal  of  discomfort.  There  are  a  few  small  fragments  which 
can  be  more  easily  studied  ;  and  they  will  be  found  some  in 
the  eastern  aisle  of  the  north  transept,  and  some  on  its  western 
wall,  in  the  spandrils  of  the  wall  arcade.  There  may  be  seen 
St  Michael  and  the  Dragon,  a  censing  angel,  a  thorn-bush, 
and  other  naturalistic  subjects.  Modern  memorial  slabs  have 
been  interpolated  between  them,  and  they  are  crumbling  fast. 
But,  decaying  as  they  are,  their  lines  still  keep  a  power  to 
move  us  :  they  possess  still  the  vigour  of  the  life  and  the  grace 
of  the  love  that  carved  them  ;  and  here  one  may  quite  con- 
fidently stop  a  moment  to  bless  the  memory  of  John  of 
St  Albans. 

One  is  tempted  to  linger  over  sculptors,  but  it  will  not 

lOI 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

do.  We  must  be  content  to  name  further  only  Alexander  of 
Abingdon  and  William  the  Irishman.  These  two  carved  the 
statues  for  certain  of  the  Eleanor  Crosses,  which  were  finished 
in  1295.  Alexander  did  those  for  the  Waltham  Cross,  and  for 
the  chief  one  at  Charing.  William  the  Irishman  carved  those 
for  Northampton  ;  and  for  these,  described  as  the  crown  of 
English  Gothic  sculpture,  he  received  in  payment  the  sum  of 
£2)  6s.  8d.  apiece.  Alexander  was  probably  the  chief  master 
sculptor  of  his  period,  and  he  was  a  citizen  of  London.  One 
thing  that  shines  in  his  memory  is  that  he  probably  wrought 
the  lovely  figure  of  Aveline  which  lies  on  her  tomb  in  the 
presbytery. 

Old  Abbey  painters  are  no  less  interesting  than  the 
sculptors  and  masons.  One  of  the  earliest  actual  records  of 
painting  for  the  church  is  a  commission  by  Henry  III  to  John 
of  St  Omer  in  1249;  and  about  that  time  there  were,  besides 
English  artists  engaged  by  the  King,  a  certain  Peter  of  Spain 
and  a  William  of  Florence.  It  will  be  seen  therefore  that 
the  school  of  painting  at  Westminster  was  of  considerable 
importance,  and  international  in  character. 

The  most  attractive  name  in  this  earliest  group  is  that  of 
"  Master  William,  a  monk  of  Westminster,"  who  is  also  called, 
in  the  royal  documents,  "  Our  beloved  Painter."  What  a 
capacity  for  loving  Henry  III  had  !  Painters,  masons,  carvers — 
all  his  workers  he  seems  to  have  loved  with  a  certain  friendli- 
ness ;  but  especially  those  who  possessed  in  greater  degree  the 
magical  gift  of  making  beauty.  And  he  "took  his  own 
wherever  he  found  it,"  whether  in  France,  Spain,  Italy,  or  at 
102 


"WE    PRAISE    THEE,    O    LORD" 

home  in  England.  It  is  even  on  record  that  he  honoured  men 
of  letters,  making  a  scribe  come  nearer  to  the  throne  on  some 
great  occasion,  so  that  he  might  better  observe  the  scene.  But 
that  was  a  different  feeling,  and  rather  a  colder  one ;  the  his- 
torian was  a  person  to  be  reckoned  with,  one  who  reasoned 
and  recorded.  Whereas  the  painter  and  the  sculptor  were 
fascinating  human  creatures  who  made  lovely  things  with  their 
hands. 

Master  William,  therefore,  had  especial  power  to  win 
Henry ;  and  it  happens  by  great  good  fortune  that  one  of  his 
works  remains  in  reasonable  preservation.  It  is  the  altar-piece 
of  St  Faith's  Chapel,  painted  about  the  year  1260.  Professor 
Lethaby  declares  that  it  is  "  the  most  remarkable  early  Gothic 
wall  painting  left  to  us,"  and  describes  it  thus:  "Within  a 
painted  niche  stands  a  female  figure  in  a  swaying  attitude, 
gracefully  draped,  and  more  than  tall.  The  colour,  when  it 
can  occasionally  be  seen  on  a  summer  afternoon,  is  beautiful ; 
her  mantle  of  rose-purple  is  lined  with  miniver ;  the  face  is 
quiet  but  full  of  passion,  and  the  hands  are  well  drawn.  She 
holds  a  book  and  a  gridiron,  and  wears  a  crown,  emblems  of  the 
rule,  trials  and  reward  of  faith.  .  .  .  The  painting,  which  is 
done  in  swift,  sweeping  touches,  is  in  true  tempera,  and  it  has 
never  received  the  attention  it  deserves." 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  this  painting  in  St  Faith's 
Chapel  is  a  thing  very  lovely  in  itself,  and  to  be  seen  for  its 
own  sake.  But  when  to  that  is  added  the  charm  of  its  position 
here  in  a  quiet  unspoilt  corner  of  the  early  architecture ;  and  to 
that  again  the  reflection  that  it  is  from  the  hands  of  the  King's 

103 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

"  beloved  Painter,"  the  altar-piece  becomes  rich  indeed.  And 
for  a  final  claim — the  little  figure  of  a  Benedictine  monk  who 
is  kneeling  at  the  lower  left-hand  side  is  probably  no  other  than 
Master  William  himself,  since  in  that  position  on  medieval 
pictures  the  artist  or  the  donor  was  usually  represented.  Master 
William,  being  a  monk  of  Westminster,  would  be  the  donor  of 
the  picture  to  his  house,  just  as  Fra  Angelico  adorned  the  cells 
of  his  monastery  of  St  Mark  at  Florence.  But  sooty  London 
has  not  been  as  kind  to  the  English  artist  as  the  clean  air  of  the 
Florentine  hills  has  been  to  the  Italian  ;  and  the  truth  must  be 
told  that  by  the  light  of  an  ordinaiy  London  day  it  is  little 
indeed  that  can  be  seen  of  Master  William's  painting. 

Master  Walter  of  Durham  is  also  a  name  to  conjure  with. 
He  succeeded  Master  William,  and  from  the  year  1262  seems 
to  have  accomplished,  with  the  tremendous  industry  of  those 
times,  prodigies  of  work.  He  was  the  artist  of  the  famous 
Painted  Chamber  of  Westminster  Palace ;  and  within  the 
Abbey  he  and  his  school  were  responsible  for  much  of  that 
rich  decoration  of  which  we  saw  examples  on  the  sedilia  and 
the  presbytery  tombs.  The  painting  of  that  wonderful  old 
retable  was  his  also :  that  on  the  tomb  of  Queen  Eleanor  and 
the  tester  which  used  to  hang  over  it ;  and  the  Coronation  Chair. 

Master  Thomas,  who  was  the  son  of  Walter  and  worked 
with  his  father  at  the  Abbey,  probably  painted  the  figures  of 
kings  and  saints  in  the  panels  of  the  sedilia,  of  which  two  still 
remain.  His  wages,  while  working  as  assistant  to  his  father, 
were  6d.  a  day ;  and  his  father  received  is.  a  day. 

Of  other  painters  who  worked  in  the  Abbey  or  in  the 
104 


"WE    PRAISE    THEE,    O    LORD" 

Chapter  House,  there  is  no  space  to  write ;  but  we  must  glance 
at  two  or  three  names  down  the  list  of  metal-workers.  We 
know  that  the  goldsmith's  art  was  much  practised  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  even  later;  and  the  extent  to  which  it  was 
developed  at  Westminster  may  be  judged  by  recalling  the 
magnificence  of  St  Edward's  Shrine.  We  remember  that  not 
only  was  the  feretory  covered  with  wrought  gold,  but  that  it 
was  literally  surrounded  by  golden  images  set  with  precious 
stones.  If  we  turn  back  again  to  that  ancient  inventory  already 
quoted,  we  see  that  fourteen  or  fifteen  golden  figures  stood 
about  the  feretory  itself,  all  richly  adorned  and  jewelled. 
Further,  we  read  that  in  1244  the  Queen  gave  an  image  of  the 
Virgin  ;  that  in  1251  a  cameo  was  carved  for  the  shrine,  and  in 
1260  precious  stones  were  bought  and  set  in  it.  Apparently 
workers  in  metal  flourished  exceedingly  in  that  flowering  time 
of  the  Arts  ;  and  the  wages  of  a  master  smith  of  the  period  were 
3s.  a  week. 

The  great  English  name  of  this  time  is  Master  William 
Torel,  goldsmith  of  London,  who  somewhere  about  the  year 
1 29 1  made  the  magnificent  bronze  effigies  of  Henry  III  and 
Queen  Eleanor.  These  are  among  the  supreme  works  in  the 
Abbey,  and  we  shall  return  to  them  in  a  later  chapter.  For  the 
statue  of  Eleanor,  with  two  smaller  ones  at  the  tombs  also 
raised  to  her  at  Blackfriars  and  Lincoln,  Torel  received 
;^ii3  6s.8d. 

John  Orchard  probably  wrought  the  bronze  portrait  effigy 
of  Edward  III  about  1377  ;  and  those  of  Richard  II  and  Anne 
were  by  Nicholas  Broker  and  Godfry  Prest,  about  1395. 

105 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Of  Torregiano,  the  exuberant  Florentine,  friend  of 
Benvenuto  Cellini  and  fellow-student  of  Michelangelo,  we 
shall  tell  when  we  consider  the  glories  of  Henry  VII's  Chapel. 
But  of  work  which,  though  quieter,  is  yet  of  very  high  merit, 
plentiful  English  names  survive.  For  Eleanor's  tomb,  that 
subject  so  fit  for  the  artist  in  every  sphere  to  lavish  his 
skill  upon,  a  smith  named  Thomas  de  Leighton  wrought  the 
curved  iron  grille.  Even  looking  up  at  it  from  the  ambulatory, 
whence  it  can  be  seen,  one  recognizes  it  for  masterly  workman- 
ship. And  the  handsome  iron  gates  of  Henry  V's  tomb, 
as  we  have  already  noted,  were  by  Roger  Johnson,  smith  of 
London,  who  made  them  about  the  year  1431. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  men  who  wrought  their  lives  into 
the  church  at  Westminster,  raising  thus  their  joyful,  undying 
Te  Deum.  We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  the  Abbey  as 
sacred  to  royal  persons.  Well,  so  it  is ;  but  not  all  of  them 
wore  crowns.  One  or  two  of  them  wore  mitres,  and  one  a 
cardinal's  hat :  one  at  least  carried  a  palette  under  his  monkish 
habit,  and  one,  a  certain  Chaucer,  Clerk  of  the  Palace  Works  in 
1389,  went  softly  about  the  cloisters  with  the  poet's  musing, 
downward  glance.  Another,  brave  Richard  Whittington, 
brought  the  counsels  of  an  honourable  merchant  to  the 
succour  of  its  affairs.  Royal  persons,  all  of  them  ;  but  not  a 
few  wore  the  furred  robes  of  the  master  craftsman,  and  many, 
very  many,  wore  leather  aprons  and  went  coifed,  and  carried 
the  tools  of  the  waller,  the  carpenter,  the  plumber,  and  the 
stone-layer. 


106 


CHAPTER  VII:  The  Home  of  Freedom 

THE  title  of  this  chapter  is  only  mine  by  adoption.     I 
found  it  one  day  when  sauntering  in  the  east  cloister : 
and  having  sheltered  it  since,  offer  it  now  as  a  phrase 
not  inapt  to  describe  the  Chapter  House  of  the  Abbey.     The 
finding  was  on  this  wise.     Stopping  to  look   for   perhaps  the 
tenth  time  at  the  ruinous  lovely  entrance  to  the  vestibule  of  the 
Chapter  House,  there   stood   the   policeman   who   guards   the 
spot.     He  is  of  course  always  on  duty  there  on  the  days  when 
this  part  of  the  Abbey  is  open,  representing  in  his  person  the 
State  which  owns  and  controls  it.     Therefore  one  had  seen  him 
often  before.     But  it  had  been  sight  without  perception  ;  and  on 
this   occasion    the   bulky   figure   suddenly  grew,   so   to   speak, 
illumined.      It   revealed    itself   as   a   potent   symbol.      Prosaic 
enough  as   a   foil  to  the  grace   of  the   thirteenth-century  arch 
above   it,  one   yet   saw   the   figure,  with   its   solidity   of  body 
matched  by  a  certain  weight  of  mind,  with  an  air  of  endurance 
and  a  glance  alert  and  defensive,  lit  by  a  ray  of  the  ancient 
spirit   of   England.     And  then  the  rightness  of  its  setting  in 
this  spot  jumped  to  the  mind.     There  he  was,  servant  of  that 
Civil  Power  which  had  birth  here  nearly  seven  hundred  years 
ago,  which  first  met  in  this  building  and  which,  representing  the 
Commonalty  of  England,  defended  through  the  centuries  those 
ideals  of  freedom  and  a  democratic  rule  which  are  supposed  to 
be  peculiarly  English. 

He  was,  however,  no  mere  carved  image  of  a  symbol,  this 
stout  limb  of  the  law.  He  was  conscious  of  all  he  signified  ;  and 
he  had  a  sense  of  humour.     For  as  we  entered  the  Chapter 

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WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

House  together,  I  said  :  "  I  sometimes  think  that  this  place  is 
the  most  wonderful  bit  of  the  Abbey."  And  he  replied  :  "You're 
right;  it  is  indeed:  'tis  the  home  of  freedom."  Then  after  a 
moment,  and  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye :  "  But  the  people  who 
come  here  don't  see  that ;  I  suppose  it's  a  bit  too  thin  for 
them.  They  just  poke  their  noses  inside  the  door,  and  away 
they  go  :  '  Nothing  to  see  here',  they  say."  And  the  laugh  that 
followed  was  rich  with  the  joke  that  in  a  place  so  crowded  there 
is  nothing  to  be  seen. 

Well,  there  is,  of  course,  a  great  deal  to  see  in  the  Chapter 
House,  apart  from  those  thin  wraiths  which  the  low  visibility  of 
London,  both  mental  and  physical,  almost  hides.  There  is  the 
incomparable  building  itself  (the  epithet  is  of  Matthew  Paris,  in 
1250),  with  its  carving  and  frescos  and  tiles,  its  single  central 
pillar  and  curious  roof,  and  its  lovely  windows.  Objects  of 
interest  abound,  here  and  in  the  adjacent  Chapel  of  the  Pyx — 
concrete  things  which  can  be  seen  and  touched.  (At  least,  if 
you  show  sufficient  interest,  the  policeman  will  allow  you  to 
touch  them — and  give  you,  too,  their  authentic  history.)  Yet, 
with  so  much  of  the  tangible,  it  is  the  ghosts  themselves  which 
are  the  most  real  things.  And  the  curious  point  is,  that  the 
older,  more  remote  and  more  attenuated  they  are,  the  more 
intensely  alive  they  seem.  So  that,  in  passing  backward  through 
the  thronging  shapes  of  record  officials,  reformers  and  great 
ecclesiastics.  Parliament-men  and  kings,  abbots,  priors  and 
monks,  one  reaches  ultimately  that  earliest  and  clearest  vision 
of  a  Benedictine  House  in  Thorny  Island  as  a  foundation 
stone  of  our  civilization.  There  it  is,  vivid  as  only  visions  can 
108 


THE    HOME    OF    FREEDOM 

be — a  little  convent  in  a  wild  spot  as  the  direct  forerunner  of 
the  House  of  Commons  :  a  "  small  parcel  of  monks  "  making  the 
way  plain  in  "  a  terrible  place"  for  the  English  Constitution ;  a 
community  meeting  in  regular  assembly  within  a  space  that  it 
had  toilfully  cleared,  and  deliberating  in  those  very  seats  which 
were  afterward  used  by  the  popular  national  assembly. 

The  visionary  gleam  is  no  will-o'-the-wisp,  either ;  for  the 
facts  are  clear  as  day.  You  may  step  back  on  them,  walking  on 
solid  dates  most  of  the  way,  till  you  stand  on  the  bed-rock  of 
historical  truth  in  the  matter,  in  a.d.  1265.  In  that  year  Parlia- 
ment came  to  life  as  a  representative  national  institution,  sum- 
moned by  the  powerful  voice  of  Simon  de  Montfort,  when  he 
called  the  people  to  join  counsel  with  the  Barons.  But  two 
years  before  that,  the  Commoners  of  London  had  met  to  confer 
in  the  Cloisters  of  the  Abbey;  and  in  1275  the  national  Parlia- 
ment, first  called  by  the  patriot  Earl  Simon,  was  established  by 
another,  convened  this  time  by  the  King,  in  which  knights, 
burgesses,  and  citizens  were  required  to  attend  "  for  themselves 
and  for  the  community." 

On  that  our  present  Constitution  rests ;  and  if  no  apology 
is  made  for  repeating  something  so  elementary,  it  is  because  of 
a  related  fact  whose  significance  is  not  so  commonly  realized. 
For  this  assembly  of  1275  was  summoned  to  meet  at  West- 
minster, and  thenceforward  Parliament  continued  to  meet  there  : 
which  is  to  say,  our  Thorny  Island  had  now  become  the  centre 
of  the  national  life.  And  although  the  united  assembly  of 
Lords  and  Commoners  met  for  some  time  under  the  royal  eye 
in  the   Painted  Chamber   of  Westminster   Palace,   it  was  not 

109 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

long  before  the  Commoners  broke  away  to  a  separate  existence, 
and  assembled  in  a  separate  place.  From  that  time,  about 
the  year  1282,  the  Abbey  became  the  home  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  or,  according  to  our  helmeted  authority,  the  Home 
of  Freedom. 

Probably  the  Commons  did  not  meet  regularly  in  the  Abbey 
at  first ;  and  their  assemblies  were  not  at  any  rate  always  in 
the  same  part  of  the  precincts.  There  are  records  of  Councils 
of  State  held  in  the  refectory  :  once  when  Edward  I  made  such 
exorbitant  demands  that  the  Dean  of  St  Paul's  (poor  valiant 
protestant !)  fell  dead  at  the  King's  feet :  once  when  Piers 
Gaveston  was  impeached,  and  at  other  times.  But  from  about 
the  year  1300  the  House  of  Commons  met  in  the  Chapter 
House ;  and  on  the  day  when  these  men  who  made  the  laws 
first  adopted  the  assembly  place  of  those  old  men  of  religion, 
the  wheel  had  come  full  circle,  and  the  new  age  had  arrived. 

The  monks  had  made  a  clearing  in  the  wilderness,  had 
tamed  Nature  to  their  service,  had  planned  and  wrought  for 
the  good  of  the  community ;  and  they  had  thereby  made  the 
later  civilization  possible.  We  think  vaguely  of  them  as 
meditative,  passive,  even  idle  ;  but  they  were  in  fact  vigorously 
constructive.  They  made  things — churches,  houses,  farms, 
wells,  gardens,  clothing;  and  were  immensely  active,  practical, 
and  industrious.  The  one  weakness  of  their  Rule  was  that 
it  was  too  practical  and  too  exhausting.  There  was  no  leisure 
for  mental  growth.  They  assembled  in  their  Chapter  House, 
as  some  say,  to  deliberate ;  and  probably  they  did  discuss  to 
some  extent  the  affairs  of  their  House.     But  there  could  not 

IIO 


THE    HOME    OF    FREEDOM 

have  been  any  great  intellectual  activity,  for  the  plain  reason 
that  their  bodies  were  too  tired.  They  were  too  much  occupied 
with  action  to  have  time  for  much  reflection.  One  therefore 
sees  them  withdrawing  to  the  Chapter  House  rather  as  a  refuge 
from  labour,  thankful  to  find  a  little  peace  there ;  and  to 
unite  in  a  spiritual  exercise  which  would  be  quite  impossible 
amongst  their  crowded  daily  duties.  Their  own  Abbot  Ware 
defined  thus  the  purposes  of  the  Chapter  House :  "  It  is  the 
house  of  confession,  the  house  of  obedience,  mercy  and  for- 
giveness, the  house  of  unity,  peace  and  tranquillity,  where  the 
brethren  make  satisfaction  for  their  faults." 

The  new  order  appropriated  the  Chapter  House  to  very 
different  uses  from  those,  uses  which  seem  at  first  sight 
contradictory,  conflicting  and  actually  subversive  of  the  Order 
it  replaced.  On  a  longer  view,  however,  one  sees  that  the  new 
was  really  the  fruit  of  the  old,  out  of  whose  roots  it  sprang. 
In  the  subsequent  history  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  the 
Chapter  House,  and  especially  in  the  Reformation  Acts  passed 
within  these  walls,  there  is  indeed  a  curious  spectacle.  And 
it  will  take  on  either  a  comic  or  a  tragic  aspect,  depending  on 
the  eye  that  one  brings  to  it.  There  may  be  a  sharp  gleam 
of  irony  in  the  vision  of  Parliament-men  passing  their  Acts 
of  Submission,  Supremacy,  and  Suppression,  while  sheltering 
under  the  very  roof  of  the  Order  that  they  were  busily  suppress- 
ing. Or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  thing  may  look  tragically 
like  a  sort  of  parricide,  the  young  offspring  rising  in  wrath 
to  strike  down  a  venerable  progenitor.  And  one  sees  how 
these   two   opposing  views   might   clash  (the  humour  of  cold 

III 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

thought  and  the  heat  of  sheer  emotion),  even  to  the  making 
of  feuds  which,  though  dwindling  in  these  days,  show  an 
expiring  flicker  now  and  then — in  the  haughty  stare  of  a  verger 
at  that  interloping  policeman  who  guards  so  jealously  the 
Chapter  House ;  or  in  the  derisive  jingling  of  the  police- 
man's keys. 

Yes,  without  venturing  too  bold  an  assertion,  one  may 
perhaps  say  that  feuds  are  dying  out.  A  happy  issue,  no 
doubt ;  and  yet,  how  much  more  exciting  it  would  be  to  take 
one  extreme  or  the  other !  It  is  so  much  jollier  either  to  have 
a  good  laugh  at  a  thing  or  to  get  in  a  great  rage  about  it — 
rather  than  walk  delicately  down  some  narrow  middle  path, 
balancing  oneself  precariously  between  fun  and  fury.  It  would, 
for  example,  be  quite  amusing  to  reflect  that  it  was  Henry  III 
who  created  alike  the  incomparable  Chapter  House  and  the 
House  of  Commons  which  met  in  it.  That  is  to  say,  his 
tireless  zeal  in  finding  money  to  erect  his  Abbey  was,  in 
another  aspect,  a  pestilential  tyranny  which  pulled  down  the 
royal  power  and  set  up  the  power  of  the  people ;  and  that 
Simon  de  Montfort,  at  the  very  moment  when  he  called  the 
first  national  assembly  of  1265,  had  our  prodigal  church- 
builder  safely  under  lock  and  key  in  the  Tower  of  London. 
Or,  at  the  other  extreme,  one  might  reflect  on  the  ruined 
abbeys  up  and  down  the  land,  and,  walking  in  our  own  Abbey, 
stand  before  the  ravaged  shrine  and  fulminate  against  those 
authors  of  the  Dissolution  who,  meeting  in  this  lovely  building, 
had  yet  no  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  Beauty. 

But  neither  course  is  open  at  this  time  of  day ;  for  some- 
112 


THE    HOME    OF    FREEDOM 

thing  constrains  the  modern  weakling  along  that  middle  path. 
From  it  one  gets  a  view  of  the  historical  prospect  which  is 
provocative  neither  of  laughter  nor  tears,  but  is  a  steady  succes- 
sion and  fulfilment.  Thus  the  one  order  grows  naturally  out 
of  the  other,  helped  by  occasional  catastrophe,  in  Nature's 
way ;  but  the  two  are  seen  to  be  mutually  dependent,  with 
profound  gratitude  due  to  the  old  monks  and  immense 
admiration  to  the  Parliament-men,  and  honours  about  equally 
divided.  To  the  monks  the  debt  stands  of  foundation-laying ; 
of  establishing,  with  their  single  tool  of  Religion,  a  material 
basis  for  civilization :  the  creation,  so  to  speak,  of  the  body  of 
the  State.  To  the  Parliament-men  belonged  the  task  of  advanc- 
ing from  that  material  basis :  of  building  upon  it  the  house 
of  the  Constitution  which  is  not  made  with  hands :  of 
kindling  a  conscious  mind  within  the  nation's  body :  of  the 
perception  of  ideals  ;  and  of  a  long,  stern  fight  for  freedom. 

The  fight,  then,  or  the  bitterer  part  of  it,  was  fought  in 
the  Chapter  House.  We  need  not  follow  its  course,  but  may 
simply  name,  as  significant  of  the  desperate  earnestness  of  the 
whole  business,  the  first  authentic  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  This  was  Peter  de  la  Mare ;  and  he  took  up  the 
cause  of  reform  with  so  much  zeal  that  he  got  himself  thrown 
into  prison  in  1376,  where  he  was  kept  for  two  years.  This  is 
the  epoch  of  the  Peasants'  Revolt,  of  John  Ball  and  the  "  Rhymes 
for  the  Times  "  : 

Now  reigncth  pride  in  price, 
And  covetise  is  counted  wise, 
And  lechery  withouten  shame 
And  gluttony  withouten  blame. 

H  113 


And  again 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 


Jack  Miller  asketh  help  to  turn  his  mill  aright. 

He  hath  grounden  small,  small : 

The  King's  Son  of  Heaven  he  shall  pay  for  all. 


Thenceforward,  for  nearly  two  hundred  years  (re-forming 
years  in  the  literal  as  well  as  the  special  sense  of  the  word)  this 
building  was  the  home  of  the  Commoners  of  England  ;  and  the 
birth-place  of  many  famous  statutes.  But  in  1547  Edward  VI 
granted  for  their  use  the  Chapel  of  St  Stephen's  in  the 
Palace  of  Westminster ;  and  they  removed  there.  One  might 
suppose  that  at  this  juncture  the  Chapter  House  would  revert 
to  its  original  purpose,  and  become  the  assembly-place  of  the 
newly  constituted  Dean  and  Chapter,  But  by  this  time  it  was 
a  treasured  State  possession  :  the  House  of  Commons  would 
hardly  relinquish  something  so  dear  as  the  scene  of  its 
turbulent  youth ;  so  it  was  continued  in  use  as  a  record  office. 
Its  beauty  was  hidden  away  under  shelves,  galleries,  and  files 
of  documents ;  its  windows  were  walled  up,  and  portentous 
things  were  stored  there.  Among  them  were  two  volumes 
of  the  original  Dome's  Day  Book,  the  great  Pipe  Roll  of  the 
4th  of  King  John,  and  the  earliest  Parliament  Rolls,  that  is 
to  say,  those  of  the  fateful  years  from  the  i8th  to  the  21st  of 
Edward  I.  It  guarded  also  certain  royal  wills,  of  which  one 
at  least — that  of  Henry  VII — we  shall  find  of  some  interest. 
And  it  was  said  to  preserve  a  parchment,  small  but  weighted 
with  doom,  the  original  Homage  by  Malcolm  King  of  Scotland 
to  Edward  the  Confessor. 

Disguised  thus  as  a  kind  of  safe-deposit,  no  one  suspected 
114 


THE    HOME    OF    FREEDOM 

until  comparatively  recent  times  how  noble  a  structure  is  the 
Chapter  House.  Then,  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  Abbey  architect  of  that  day  rediscovered  it.  It 
was  a  gallant  adventure.  He  squeezed  behind  galleries  and 
wooden  frames,  mounted  on  piles  of  dusty  old  papers,  peered 
with  a  lantern  into  dark  corners,  and  doubtless  spoiled  his 
temper  and  his  clothes  in  a  dogged  effort  to  see  round,  under, 
or  over  that  maddening  screen  of  boards  which  hid  so  much. 
And  all  the  time  he  was  making  his  patient  notes  and  sketches. 
The  result  was  a  careful  and  complete  description  of  some- 
thing so  lovely  that  the  Parliament  of  that  day,  counselled  by 
Gladstone,  its  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  granted  sufficient 
money  to  restore  it. 

At  last,  therefore,  the  horrid  truth  is  out.  The  present 
building  is  a  restoration  of  1865.  Yet,  granting  fully  that 
that  is  a  depressing  fact,  one  need  not  be  too  much  cast  down 
by  it,  for  a  great  deal  of  the  original  beauty  still  remains. 
There  is,  first  and  foremost,  the  fine  shape  and  proportion  of 
the  building.  It  is  erected  over  a  very  substantial  crypt  of 
Norman  work;  and  was  finished,  as  to  structure,  in  1253.  It 
is  complete  in  itself,  and  separate  from  the  Abbey.  The 
designer,  therefore,  had  a  free  hand  :  he  could  plan  for  unity, 
proportion,  and  grace  ;  and  he  could  light  his  building  effectively. 
It  is  octagonal  in  shape,  with  an  extremely  fine  window  filling 
each  wall.  The  size  and  structure  of  the  windows  are  worth 
observing,  and  their  effect  is  very  noble.  They  are  four-light 
windows,  each  divided  into  two  pairs  of  lights,  which  have  their 
separate  traceried  arch  pierced  above  by  a  four-foil  rose.     The 

"5 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

two  pairs  of  lights  are  then  combined  into  one  vast  containing 
arch,  it  pierced  in  turn  by  a  great  six-foil  rose  above. 

The  remarkable  roof,  shaped  like  an  inverted  pyramid, 
does  not  belong  to  the  first  design ;  but  the  multiple  pillar 
which  rises  in  the  centre  as  its  single  support  is  original.  It 
is  35  feet  high,  and  of  Purbeck  marble  throughout.  It  is 
composed  of  a  central  pillar,  round  which  cluster  eight  slender 
shafts,  the  whole  bound  together  by  three  moulded  bands. 
The  marble  capital  is  richly  carved  ;  and  indeed  there  is  much 
of  the  early  carving  surviving  in  the  Chapter  House.  Over 
the  inside  of  the  door,  to  right  and  left,  are  two  original  figures 
of  the  Virgin  and  the  angel  Gabriel  which  are  considered  to  be 
unsurpassed  in  their  vigour  and  truth  of  execution  ;  and  round 
the  curve  of  the  arch  of  the  door  is  a  lovely  design  of  climbing 
foliage  twining  about  finely  carved  little  figures. 

The  walls  are  arcaded  all  round  the  building  for  the  stalls 
where  the  monks  used  to  sit.  The  arcades  are  trefoiled,  and 
their  columns  and  capitals  are  of  marble.  At  the  eastern  side 
there  remain  some  original  sculptured  capitals,  the  marble 
carved  in  very  high  relief.  The  spandrils  over  the  arches  have 
a  similar  square  diapering  to  that  in  the  earlier  part  of  the 
church  itself,  which  was  of  course  being  built  concurrently 
with  the  Chapter  House.  But  in  one  of  the  spandrils  at  the 
east  end,  where  the  decoration  would  be  richer  because  the 
Abbot  had  his  seat  there,  is  an  exquisite  trellis  of  roses. 

The  Chapter  House  was  adorned  with  colour  and  gold 
as  gaily  as  the  presbytery  and  the  shrine.  A  series  of  paintings 
filled  the  backs  of  the  stalls.  Those  at  the  eastern  side 
ii6 


THE    HOME    OF    FREEDOM 

represented  Christ  and  the  host  of  Heaven,  and  are  work  of 
the  fourteenth  century.  Those  on  the  left  of  the  door  were 
done  late  in  the  fifteenth  century  by  John  of  Northampton  ;  and 
are  a  series  of  scenes  from  the  Apocalypse.  Parts  of  these 
paintings  may  still  be  seen.  The  diapering  was  in  gold  upon 
a  vermilion  ground :  the  mouldings  were  in  vermilion :  the 
capitals  and  abaci  in  gilt. 

The  tiled  floor,  however,  is  the  most  remarkable  work 
remaining  from  those  old  times.  It  was  finished  in  the  year 
1258;  but  having  been  covered  for  the  greater  part  of  its  long 
existence,  it  is  still  almost  intact.  It  is  composed  of  incised 
tiles  of  various  design,  including  subjects  which  are  intensely 
interesting  because  of  their  reference  to  the  time  in  which  they 
were  laid  down.  There  are,  for  example,  figures  of  Henry  III, 
Eleanor  of  Provence,  his  Queen,  and  one  of  the  Abbots  of  the 
period,  Crokesley.  There  are  the  leopards  (not  lions)  of 
England,  the  salmon  of  Westminster  (that  given  by  the 
fisherman  to  the  Bishop  in  proof  that  St  Peter  had  actually 
consecrated  the  church  in  person) ;  and  the  favourite  episode 
from  the  Confessor's  life,  in  which  he  gives  his  ring  to  the 
beggar  disguised  as  St  John.  Others  represent  hunting  scenes, 
and  others  again,  in  a  set  of  four,  give  the  exact  design  of  the 
great  rose  of  the  south  transept,  which  was  probably  at  that 
moment  being  constructed.  Professor  Lethaby,  who  has 
studied  the  tiles  minutely  and  made  drawings  of  them,  declares 
that  they  are  equal  to  the  Chertsey  series  and  were  probably 
designed  by  the  same  artist ;  and  that  this  floor  "  is  the  finest 
of  its  kind  existing." 

117 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

If,  therefore,  one  gives  but  a  little  time  and  patience  to  the 
Chapter  House,  including  its  dramatic  low  vestibule,  it  is  found 
to  be  of  absorbing  interest,  and  still  worthy  of  Matthew  Paris's 
epithet  '  incomparable.'  But  there  is  yet  a  further  aspect  from 
which  it  may  be  viewed.  Look  at  it  in  contrast  to  the  sanctuary 
— that  other  ancient  institution  of  the  Abbey — and  it  will  be 
seen  still  more  clearly  in  its  symbolic  character  of  the  new  age 
developing  from  the  old.  Or  rather,  from  this  standpoint,  it  is 
like  order  emerging  from  chaos,  or  day  breaking  after  a  very 
foul  night. 

There  never  was  any  building  which  was  separately  used 
as  a  sanctuary,  though  an  ancient  tower  which  was  really  the 
belfry  has  been  so  described.  It  was  situated  at  the  north- 
western end  of  the  Abbey  precincts,  contained  the  great  bells 
which  Henry  III  presented  to  his  church,  and  was  of  very 
massive  construction.  Indeed,  its  fortress-like  strength  may 
have  given  rise  to  the  legend  that  fugitives  were  at  one  time 
sheltered  there. 

Right  of  sanctuary  probably  began  with  the  canonization  of 
the  Confessor,  though  there  are  of  course  plentiful  legends  which 
connect  it  with  Lucius,  Sebert,  and  even  St  Peter  himself— who 
luckily  dropped  his  cope  on  that  night  when  he  consecrated  the 
Abbey,  and  thus  left  a  very  useful  bit  of  evidence  for  the 
support  of  future  claims.  And  down  to  the  sixteenth  century 
the  Abbots  actually  cited  the  cope  as  proof  at  law,  and  as  a 
reason  for  retaining  the  privilege. 

The  right  was  not  confined  to  any  one  spot,  inside 
the  church  or  out,  but  extended  to  the  whole  Abbey  and  its 
ii8 


THE    HOME    OF    FREEDOM 

precincts.  Hence  houses  which  the  monastery  built  within  the 
close  were  under  its  shelter — and  became  very  good  letting  in 
consequence.  Broad  Sanctuary  and  Little  Sanctuary  are 
examples ;  and  thus  the  old  Almonry,  in  which  Caxton 
established  his  press  about  1471,  was  also  "in  Sanctuary," 

Now  there  must  have  been,  of  course,  in  the  long  and 
tumultuous  history  of  sanctuary  at  Westminster,  many  genuine 
claims  upon  it.  One  likes  to  think  of  the  poet  Skelton 
sheltered  here  by  that  good  churchman,  statesman,  and  Com- 
missioner of  Sewers,  Abbot  Islip.  And  Elizabeth  Woodville, 
poor  terrified  Queen  of  Edward  IV,  who  more  pitifully  in  need 
of  succour  than  she  and  her  young  children,  hunted  by  the 
murderous  Richard  ?  One  can  read  the  whole  story  of  her 
sojourns  here,  and  their  tragic  outcome,  in  More ;  but  to  read 
it  is  to  execrate  the  memory  of  certain  base  statesmen  and 
ecclesiastics.  The  principal  facts  are  well  known.  In  1470, 
the  Civil  Wars  raging  and  Edward  IV  having  fled,  the  Queen 
took  refuge  in  sanctuary.  Shortly  afterward  her  son,  he  who 
became  at  the  death  of  his  father  the  uncrowned  Edward  V, 
was  born  there — probably  in  the  Abbot's  quarters. 

In  greate  penurie,  forsaken  of  all  hir  friends,  she  was  delivered  of  a 
faire  son,  called  Edward,  which  was  with  small  pompe  like  a  poore  man's 
child  christened,  the  godfathers  being  the  Abbat  and  the  Prior  of  West- 
minster, and  the  godmother  the  ladie  Scroope.^ 

Thirteen  years  afterward,  when  Edward  IV  died,  the 
Queen  again  fled  to  sanctuary,  taking  this  time  her  daughters 
and  the  young  Duke  of  York.     Prince  Edward,  who  had  been 

1  Sir  Thomas  More,  Holinshed. 

"9 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

born  in  sanctuary,  was  already  in  Richard's  hands ;  but  it  was 
deemed  necessary  to  secure  his  younger  brother  also.  Richard 
was  capable  of  forcing  his  way  into  the  Abbey  and  seizing  the 
child ;  but  from  this  he  was  dissuaded  by  the  two  Archbishops. 
They  had  a  more  excellent  way  of  attaining  his  ends.  He  must 
on  no  account  violate  that  ancient  privilege  sanctified  by  the 
cope :  let  him  leave  the  matter  in  their  hands :  the  child  should 
be  surrendered.  So  he  of  Canterbury,  Cardinal  Bourchier, 
came  to  the  weeping  Queen,  and  reasoned  with  her.  Could  she 
not  see  that  it  would  be  for  the  good  of  her  child  to  give  him 
up  ?  One  sees  the  flash  of  scorn  through  her  tears  as  she 
answers :  "  Hath  the  Protector  his  uncle  such  a  love  for 
him  ?  .  .  ."  The  Primate  is  compelled  to  try  another  argument, 
a  casuistry  this  time,  importing  that  the  boy,  who  has  done  no 
evil,  cannot  therefore  receive  a  protection  which  is  intended 
only  for  malefactors.     The  mother  is  at  last  overborne  : 

I  can  no  more,  but  whosoever  he  be  that  breaketh  this  holie 
sanctuarie,  I  praie  God  shortlie  send  him  need  of  sanctuarie,  when  he 
maie  not  come  to  it.  For  taken  out  of  sanctuarie  would  I  not  my 
mortal]  enimie  were.^ 

Perhaps  there  is  nothing  in  literature  more  poignant  than 
Elizabeth's  last  words,  as  she  gives  up  the  child  : 

"  Fare  well  mine  owne  sweete  sonne,  God  send  you  good  keeping; 
let  me  kisse  you  yet  once  yer  you  go,  for  God  knoweth  when  we  shall 
kisse  togither  againe."  And  therewith  she  kissed  him  and  blessed  him  : 
turned  hir  backe  and  wept  and  went  her  waie,  leaving  the  child  weeping 
as  fast.^ 

••■  Sir  Thomas  More,  Holinshed.  ^  Ibid. 

I20 


THE    HOME    OF    FREEDOM 

But  there  is  no  space  even  to  name  the  long  list  of  genuine 
fugitives  at  Westminster:  nor  to  relate  how  sanctuary  was 
twice  violated,  once  by  a  murder  in  the  choir,  for  which  the 
Abbey  was  closed  for  four  months.  During  that  time,  of 
course,  our  commoners  could  not  meet  in  their  Chapter  House ; 
and  Parliament  was  suspended.  It  was  not,  however,  the 
succour  of  genuine  claimants  which  brought  disrepute  on 
sanctuary  and  eventually  caused  its  abolition. 

It  does  not  require  a  great  effort  of  imagination  to  perceive 
how  easily  the  idea  and  conditions  of  sanctuary  would  be 
subject  to  abuse.  The  mere  physical  extent  of  the  privilege, 
which  was,  as  we  have  seen,  over  the  whole  precincts,  was  fatal 
to  it.  For  undesirable  characters  of  all  kinds  flocked  to  the 
Abbey  close  and  took  lodgings  there,  in  order  to  be  safe  from 
the  proper  consequences  of  their  misdeeds.  Every  available 
inch  was  filled  with  persons  who,  though  sometimes  honest 
rogues,  and  sometimes  mere  debtors,  were  more  often  than 
not  deliberate  criminals  practising  their  pet  vices  under  the 
protection  of  sanctuary.  A  very  early  historian  of  the  Abbey 
says:  "Such  places  were  become  a  refuge  to  bad  men  and 
so  an  encouragement  to  bad  practices."  Yet  so  strong  was 
tradition,  and  so  powerful  the  plea  of  privilege,  that  the  Abbey 
successfully  defended  its  right  even  against  Parliament  itself, 
on  several  occasions.  So,  though  it  was  modified  in  1566 
(to  exclude  murderers),  right  of  sanctuary  lingered,  and  was 
legally  tenable,  until  the  time  of  James  I.  Therefore  it  existed 
as  an  institution  for  some  years  after  the  House  of  Commons 
had  removed  from  the  Chapter  House  to  St  Stephen's. 

121 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

One  pauses  for  a  moment  there,  struck  again  by  the 
relation  between  these  two  old  Abbey  institutions,  their  similar 
origin,  and  their  immensely  different  ends.  The  right  of 
sanctuary,  in  its  religious  significance,  might  be  held  to  syni- 
bolize  the  spiritual  genius,  as  distinguished  from  the  great 
physical  achievement,  of  the  old  order.  The  cult  of  mercy,  a 
pure  impulse  of  religion  toward  forgiveness  and  magnanimity, 
was  the  gentle  secret  of  its  strength,  as  it  surely  remains  the 
source  of  all  power  worth  having.  One  does  not  suggest 
for  a  moment  that  (as  a  pure  impulse)  it  has  ever  been  or  ever 
can  be  replaced  by  something  better.  But  the  impulse  was 
unreasoned ;  and  it  did  not  remain  pure.  Therefore  it  could 
not  arrive  at  the  fundamental  justice  which  is  the  root  of  mercy 
itself;  and  it  tended  inevitably  to  become  corrupted.  Hence 
that  Law  which  the  Chapter  House  symbolizes,  a  sterner  thing 
but  a  more  vital  because  a  more  rational,  sprang  like  a  phoenix 
out  of  the  ruins  of  the  old  cult.  It  grew,  after  a  time,  too  big 
for  the  Chapter  House  to  contain  it ;  and  if  one  looks  for  it 
to  endure,  that  is  surely  because,  so  long  as  it  remains  based  on 
justice,  it  is  effectively  a  more  merciful  dispensation  than  the 
old  chaos  which  it  replaced. 


122 


CHAPTER  VIII:  The  Lady  Chapel  of 

Henry  VII 

I 

THE  part  of  the  Abbey  which  we  call  the  Henry  VH 
Chapel,  that  is  to  say,  its  extreme  eastern  end,  should 
be  called  rightly  the  Lady  Chapel  of  Henry  VH.  I 
think  there  is  a  significance  in  the  exact  title  which  is  lacking 
from  the  popular  one ;  and  the  little  difference  yet  means  so 
much  that  it  is  worth  while  to  establish  its  claim.  One 
turns  therefore  to  Holinshed  to  note  this  entry,  under  the 
year  1502 : 

In  this  eighteenth  yeare,  the  twentie  fourth  dale  of  Januarie,  a 
quarter  of  an  houre  afore  three  of  the  clocke  at  after  noone  of  the  same 
daie,  the  first  stone  of  our  ladie  chapell  within  the  monasterie  of 
Westminster  was  laid,  by  the  hands  of  John  Islip  abbat  of  the  same 
monasterie. 

The  chapel  was  therefore  commonly  known  as  '  our  ladie 
chapell '  when  the  Holinshed  Chronicles  were  written  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  We  know,  too,  that  on  the  site  where  it 
stands  there  existed  not  only  the  White  Rose  Tavern,  a  small 
chapel  of  St  Erasmus,  and  a  "tenement  in  a  garden"  which 
had  been  leased  to  Chaucer,  but  the  old  Lady  Chapel  whose 
first  stone  Henry  HI  had  laid  while  a  mere  boy.  And  the 
sole  reason  for  demolishing  all  these  buildings  was  to  make 
possible  a  Lady  Chapel  of  much  greater  size  and  splendour. 

There  is,  further,  the  testimony  of  Henry  VH's  will,  that 
precious  old  document  that  is  worth  a  dozen  histories  in  the 
way  it  breathes  the  life  of  the  time  in  which  it  was  written,  and 

123 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

the  spirit  of  the  man  who  wrote  it.  In  an  invocation  to  his 
Saviour,  Henry  declares  that  the  chapel  is  to  be  dedicated  to 

oure  lady  Saincte  Mary,  in  whom  after  Thee,  in  this  mortall  lif  hath 
evrbeen  my  moost  singulier  trust  and  confidence.  .  .  .  Whereof  swettest 
lady  of  m'cy,  veray  moder  and  virgin,  Welle  of  pitie  and  surest  refuge  of 
al  nedefull,  moost  humbly,  moost  entierly,  and  moost  hertely  I  beseche 
thee. 

At  the  east  end,  in  the  place  of  highest  honour  beside  our 
Lord,  stands  a  sculptured  image  of  the  Virgin  which  even  the 
upheaval  of  the  Dissolution  did  not  shake  from  its  niche ;  and 
the  high  altar  of  the  chapel,  before  which  Henry  VII  is  buried, 
was  called  "  Our  Lady  Aultre." 

Is  the  title  established  ?  I  think  it  is ;  and  of  course  it 
had  only  lapsed  because  of  the  desperate  fear  of  Mariolatry 
which  seems  to  us  now  to  have  been  such  a  frenzied  thing. 
Recovered  from  that  fever  at  this  time  of  day,  one  can  look 
at  the  truth  with  saner  eyes  and  get  glimpses  of  something 
more  meaningful  and  gracious.  It  is  indeed,  this  chapel  and 
its  dedication,  so  full  of  meaning  as  almost  to  baffle  expression. 
For  here  is  a  building  which  is  described  by  one  sober  historian 
as  "the  miracle  of  the  world";  and  by  another  as  "a  prodigy 
of  art ";  by  a  great  poet  as  "  the  most  romantic  work  of  the 
Middle  Ages  ";  and  by  a  competent  architect,  critically  weigh- 
ing pros  and  cons,  as  a  work  of  "  extraordinary  merit."  Histori- 
cally, it  is  the  culmination  of  an  epoch ;  the  moment  when  the 
medieval  order  was  on  the  crest  of  the  wave,  just  before  it 
toppled  and  fell.  .'Esthetically,  the  chapel  is  the  apogee  of  a 
long  tradition  in  architecture,  attaining  to  a  magnificence  which 
124 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII 

may  even  displease  by  its  prodigality.  Spiritually,  it  is  the 
last  great  gesture  of  the  old  religion ;  and  politically  it 
represents  the  beginning  of  that  new  dynasty  which  was  itself 
to  strike  a  death-blow  at  the  ancient  faith.  Henry  VII,  first 
Tudor  king,  conceived  this  miracle  of  loveliness  as  an  act  of 
adoration  to  that  old  faith.  The  tenour  of  his  will  leaves  no 
reasonable  doubt  of  that :  his  ardour  and  sincerity  are  un- 
mistakable. But,  as  one  passes  onward  to  his  son,  it  is  seen 
that  in  the  course  of  one  lifetime  the  wave-crest  has  plunged 
down  headlong;  for  Henry  VIII,  second  Tudor  king,  and 
Defender  of  the  Faith,  arms  himself  indignantly  to  destroy 
that  which  his  father  had  so  ardently  worshipped. 

All  these  things,  with  their  measureless  implications,  are 
comprised  in  the  words  '  Lady  Chapel.'  The  cult  of  the 
Virgin  Mother  was  the  centre  of  medieval  life  and  the  source 
of  its  inspiration  :  the  origin  of  all  that  was  sweet  and  gracious 
in  it.  If  it  was  at  the  same  time  the  ultimate  cause  of  its 
weakness  and  downfall,  as  some  aver,  that  is  only  to  say 
that  every  lovely  thing  that  grows  bears  within  it  the  seeds 
of  its  decay.  We  are  not  concerned  with  that  aspect  of  the 
matter  here.  For  us  it  is  enough  to  see  that  the  art  in- 
spired and  fostered  by  the  old  religion  made  its  last  great 
utterance  to  us  English  in  the  fabric  of  this  chapel.  And 
in  like  manner,  its  spirit  may  be  said  to  have  reached  supreme 
expression  in  the  wise  and  tender  soul  of  the  Lady  Margaret 
who  lies  within  these  walls. 

For  this  is  a  Lady  Chapel  in  still  another  sense.  It  is 
the   resting-place   of  great   and    noble   women.     Here  will  be 

125 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

found,  far  beyond  them  all,  Margaret  Beaufort :  she  who 
transmitted  to  Tudor  monarchs  whatever  of  greatness  they 
possessed.  Here  is  Elizabeth,  inheriting  Margaret's  strength 
but  not  her  sweetness.  Here  is  the  tragic  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots ;  and  the  gentle  Elizabeth  of  York,  content  to  take  an 
unwilling  mate,  if  so  she  might  unite  their  warring  houses 
and  give  her  country  peace.  And  here  is  Margaret 
Lennox,  mother  of  that  young  Darnley  who  was  Mary's 
murdered  husband.  Thus  the  building  is  quite  literally  sacred 
to  women ;  and  its  two  aisles  are  named  respectively  (from 
the  two  greatest  personages  who  are  entombed  there)  the 
Margaret  and  Elizabeth  Chapels. 

One  may  call  the  fact  of  this  cluster  of  tombs  in  the 
Lady  Chapel  fortuitous ;  and  perhaps  it  did  just  happen  so. 
But  Margaret  and  Elizabeth  were  no  mere  accidents.  They 
were  (each  in  her  own  day)  master-spirits  of  the  time  and 
vividly  self-conscious.  Considering  all  that  they  were  and 
signified,  and  the  chasm  that  yawns  between  them,  the  thought 
that  they  both  lie  in  this  Lady  Chapel  is  one  to  ponder  over. 
It  has  its  irony  too,  if  one  keeps  one's  glance  fixed  for  a 
moment  on  Elizabeth.  But  irony  will  not  live  in  the  thought 
of  Margaret  Beaufort :  it  melts  in  her  clear  nobleness.  And 
looking  steadily  at  her,  one  sees  more  and  more  completely 
how  she  stands  for  a  symbol  of  all  that  was  finest  in  the  old 
world  that  passed  away  with  her.  The  age  and  the  religion 
which  fostered  a  spirit  like  hers,  and  built  this  chapel,  has 
something — a  very  great  something — to  be  said  for  it. 

But  now  to  look  at  the  chapel.  We  have  seen  that  it 
126 


i    L 


THE    LADY    CHAPEL    OF    HENRY    VII 

was  begun  in  the  year  1502,  when  the  first  stone  was  laid 
by  Abbot  Islip,  acting  for  Henry  VII.  But  the  King  had  had 
the  project  in  mind  for  some  years  before  that  date.  It  arose 
out  of  his  desire  to  do  honour  to  the  memory  of  the  last 
Lancastrian  king,  Henry  VI,  who  appears  to  have  been 
worshipped  popularly  as  a  saint.  Henry  VII  did,  in  fact, 
begin  the  long  and  costly  business  of  getting  Henry  VI 
canonized ;  but  he  never  completed  it.  For,  after  receiving 
permission  from  the  Pope  to  remove  the  body  from  Windsor, 
and  defending  against  competitors  the  claim  of  Westminster 
as  the  proper  place  to  build  the  chapel  in  which  it  was  to 
lie ;  after  planning  that  new  chapel  with  the  express  purpose 
"  right  shortely  to  translate  into  the  same,  the  bodie  and 
reliques  of  our  Uncle  of  blessed  memorie  King  Henry  VI " — 
the  whole  project  as  it  concerned  that  "  Uncle  of  blessed 
memorie"  was  for  a  sufficient  reason  dropped.  Not  only  was 
Henry  VI  never  canonized,  but  the  body  was  left  at  Windsor, 
where  it  still  is. 

The  sufficient  reason  was  the  death  of  Henry  VII,  which 
found  the  negotiations  with  Rome  incomplete  in  one  particular. 
That  was  the  payment  of  the  vast  amount  of  money  required 
to  purchase  the  canonization.  One  sees  the  pious  Henry  VII — 
pious  but  evidently  not  good  at  paying — hesitating  long  over 
the  staggering  demands  of  Rome.  Other  difficulties  he  faced 
and  overcame ;  but  this  tiresome  payment  irked  him  to  think 
about.  So  he  put  it  out  of  mind — and  probably  even  forgot 
it  (as  one  does  the  things  one  dislikes  doing)  until  it  was 
too  late. 

127 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Henry  VII  died  in  1509,  some  years  before  his  chapel  was 
completely  finished.  But  it  was  sufficiently  advanced  (it  was, 
in  fact,  up  as  far  as  the  vault)  for  the  directions  of  his  will  to  be 
followed : 

We  wol  .  .  .  that  ovvre  bodie  be  buried  within  .  .  .  the  Chapell  we 
have  begonne  to  buylde  of  newe  in  the  honour  of  our  blessed  Lady.  And 
we  wol  that  owre  towmbe  bee  in  the  myddes  of  the  same  Chapell,  before 
the  high  Aultier. 

He  was  buried  there  accordingly,  and  his  Queen,  Elizabeth 
of  York,  who  had  predeceased  him,  was  laid  beside  him.  That 
was  in  the  month  of  May.  Six  weeks  afterward,  the  Lady 
Margaret,  his  mother,  also  died,  in  the  midst  of  the  junketings 
for  the  coronation  of  Henry  VIII.  Her  life  had  been  given  to 
her  son  in  absolute  devotion.  Her  statecraft  had  planned  for 
him  the  succession  to  the  crown :  she  was  the  real  victor  of 
Bosworth  Field.  Her  patriotism  it  was  which  pressed  on 
Henry  the  marriage  with  Elizabeth  of  York  which  he  had  so 
little  taste  for;  and  her  ability  and  wisdom,  her  infinite 
tenderness  and  loyalty,  were  always  at  his  service.  Now 
her  task  was  done :  Henry  being  dead,  she  had  leave  to 
die  too. 

They  erected  her  tomb  in  her  son's  Lady  Chapel,  in  its 
south  aisle ;  and  the  same  artist  who  made  Henry's  tomb 
wrought  hers  also.  And  somehow  it  has  happened  that  of 
these  two  peerless  works  (which  if  they  did  but  stand  in  some 
difficult  country  a  thousand  miles  away,  no  self-respecting 
English  creature  would  rest  until  he  had  made  a  pilgrimage  to 
see  them)  the  one  which  is  a  consummate  masterpiece,  and 
128 


THE    LADY    CHAPEL    OF    HENRY    VII 

in  one  opinion  at  least,  the  most  exquisite  thing  in  the  Abbey, 
is  that  of  the  Lady  Margaret. 

Putting  the  matter  quite  soberly,  it  would,  I  suppose,  be 
admitted  that  the  tombs  of  Henry  and  Margaret  are  the  central 
interest  of  the  Lady  Chapel.  For  there  is,  first,  the  powerful 
attraction  of  the  thought,  with  regard  to  Henry,  that  here  in 
this  very  spot  lies  the  founder  of  the  chapel,  the  first  king  of 
the  Tudor  dynasty  ;  and  with  regard  to  the  Lady  Margaret,  that 
here  in  this  very  spot  lies  the  mother  of  the  King,  and  of 
the  dynasty  ;  the  bountiful,  beloved,  and  humble  lady  who 
encouraged  learning,  protected  Caxton  and  employed  Wynkyn 
de  Worde,  performed  endless  devotions,  drained  fens,  acted  as 
Justice  of  the  Peace,  gave  measureless  charity,  and  did  bitter 
penance  for  sins  so  small  that  only  she  could  see  them.  But 
apart  from  this  historical  interest,  the  monuments  are  of 
immense  importance  aesthetically :  and  the  story  of  their 
making  throws  curious  light  into  some  corners  of  that  old 
world. 

Approaching  at  once,  then,  the  tomb  of  Henry  VII,  we  are 
immediately  struck  by  two  conflicting  facts — first,  that  it  is  the 
most  prominent  feature  of  the  chapel ;  and  second,  that  we 
cannot,  in  reality,  see  it  at  all.  When  we  enter  the  Lady 
Chapel,  stand  in  its  broad  nave  and  bring  our  astonished  eyes 
down  at  last  from  the  marvellous  vault  to  the  most  conspicuous 
object  in  the  nave,  what  we  see  is  apparently  a  chapel  within 
the  chapel — a  complete  building  in  bronze,  lofty  and  broad,  with 
no  visible  sign  of  the  tomb  itself.  This  building  is,  of  course, 
the  screen  or  closure  surrounding  the  monument ;  and  it  is  in 

I  129 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

truth  a  chapel,  designed  expressly  by  Henry  for  priests  to  chant 
daily  masses  "  perpetually  while  the  world  shall  endure." 

This  Chantry  Chapel  is  described  by  Professor  Lethaby  as 
"  one  of  the  most  masterly  pieces  of  metal  casting  in  Europe  "  ; 
but  though  it  is  in  metal,  it  is  designed  as  though  its  substance 
were  stone.  It  is  a  Gothic  structure  complete  at  every  point, 
with  buttress  and  turret,  pinnacle  and  canopied  niche  and 
elaborately  traceried  window.  Thus  there  is  in  this  screen  a 
meeting  of  the  ways  in  art :  a  choice  of  material  and  a  touch  of 
fantasy  in  its  treatment  which  are  of  the  Renaissance ;  and  a 
design  which  is  entirely  medieval.  It  is  as  though  the  two  ages 
met  and  saluted  here,  each  honouring  the  other,  before  the  older 
order  should  pass.  One  step  within  the  Chantry,  and  that 
Gothic  era  has  gone,  leaving  nothing  more  than  a  trace ;  and 
the  Renaissance  has  come  completely  into  its  own  with 
Torregiano,  the  Italian  artist.  But  the  Chantry  itself  is,  accord- 
ing to  instructed  opinion,  completely  English  work.  Lawrence 
Imber,  '  karver,'  is  identified  as  the  designer  of  the  work,  and 
'  imagere  '  of  the  figures  of  saints  which  once  adorned  it.  There 
were  originally  thirty-two  of  those  images  ;  but  only  six  have 
outlasted  the  successive  storms  of  destruction  which  have  fallen 
on  the  Abbey.  They  are  extremely  interesting  little  figures. 
Their  execution  cannot  compare  in  delicacy  with  the  carving 
on  the  tomb  within :  but  in  fact  no  comparison  should  be 
attempted,  for  they  are  of  a  totally  different  order.  Remember- 
ing the  different  material  in  which  they  are  expressed,  and  the 
different  method  of  execution  (for  these  figures  were  cast  in 
bronze  from  wooden  models)  the  wonder  is  that  they  have  so 
130 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VH 

much  character  and  grace.  There  are,  as  I  said,  six  of  them. 
Three  are  on  the  south  side — Edward  the  Confessor,  St  John, 
and  St  Bartholomew  carrying  his  skin.  On  the  east  side  is  a 
figure  of  St  James  major :  on  the  west  is  a  vigorous  St  George 
trampling  on  his  dragon,  and  on  the  north  a  prophet. 

But  now  to  come  at  the  tomb  itself.  The  first  thing  to 
say,  however,  is  that,  unhappily,  one  cannot  come  at  it.  The 
gates  of  the  Chantry  are  closed   and  locked,  and  the  key  is 

securely  kept  in but  that,  I  suppose,  I  must  not  divulge. 

Therefore,  with  the  elaborate  tracery  of  the  screen  closing 
it  in  all  round,  the  monument  is  effectively  concealed.  It  is 
possible,  of  course,  by  standing  on  the  steps  of  the  Chantry 
doors,  to  squint  through  the  bars,  first  at  one  side,  and  then 
at  the  other,  of  the  tomb.  But  it  is  an  oblique  and  tantalizing 
view,  and  one  does  not  recommend  it,  since  the  peep  it  gives  is 
only  an  exasperating  hint  of  all  that  is  concealed,  and  conduces 
to  nothing  but  profanity.  Of  course,  by  an  act  of  grace  one 
can  get  inside ;  but  it  seems  a  pity  that  a  special  act  should  be 
necessary,  for  surely  persons  who  are  sufficiently  interested  to 
wish  to  see  the  tomb,  would  for  that  reason  be  trustworthy 
enough  to  admit  within  the  closure.  One  realizes  fully  the 
need  to  protect  so  precious  a  masterpiece,  but  it  is  no  master- 
piece except  to  the  eyes  that  see  it.  And  hidden  as  it  is,  it 
might  almost  as  well  be  a  crude  block  of  sandstone. 

In  the  year  151 2  the  Florentine  artist  Torregiano  made 
a  contract  with, Henry  VIII  to  construct  a  tomb  for  Henry  VII 
at  a  cost  of  ;i^i500.  He  finished  it  about  the  year  1518.  The 
monument  was  agreed  to  be  in  marble,  with  effigies  of  the  King 

131 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

and  Queen,  and  other  figures,  in  copper-gilt ;  and  it  was 
stipulated  that  the  work  should  be  done  "well,  clenly,  worke- 
manly,  curiously,  and  substancyally."  You  may  think  the 
conditions  ample,  even  to  bind  an  artist  belonging  to  the  rather 
madly  rotating  circle  of  Benvenuto  Cellini ;  but  they  were  more 
than  fulfilled.  Indeed,  if  one  went  about  to  search  for  and 
write  down  all  the  words  which  describe  how  this  work  was 
performed,  it  would  take  a  very  long  time.  Nobly,  exquisitely, 
richly,  splendidly,  delicately — these  are  but  a  few  of  them,  and 
do  not  exhaust  their  diversity.  But  lest  one  be  accused  of  that 
unpardonable  sin  enthusiasm,  let  us  hasten  to  retreat  behind 
the  judicial  figure  of  Francis,  Lord  Verulam,  and  watch  in 
safety  while  he,  riding  Pegasus  on  the  curb,  sums  up  the  case 
for  us.  And  what  he  says  about  it  is  that  the  tomb  is  "  one 
of  the  stateliest  and  daintiest  monuments  of  Europe."  He 
continues  further,  speaking  of  Henry  VII  :  "  He  dwelleth  more 
richly  dead,  in  the  monument  of  his  tomb,  than  he  did  in 
Richmond  or  any  of  his  palaces." 

Something  is  known  about  Torregiano,  the  maker  of  this 
lovely  tomb,  and  (let  us  not  forget  it)  of  the  Lady  Margaret's 
too.  One  speculates  a  little  about  him.  What  manner  of  man 
would  he  be,  this  worker  of  miracles  by  punctual  contract :  this 
artist  who  could  create  a  thing  so  splendid  and  yet  so 
marvellously  delicate :  this  dual  or  multiple  creature  whose 
mind  could  conceive  and  whose  amazing  fingers  could  fashion 
such  various  beauty  ?  Not  one  man,  but  many,  surely  he  must 
have  been  ;  and  all  of  them  great.  Well,  great  he  certainly 
was,  but  not  in  any  conventional  or  insular  way.  For  first  of 
132 


THE    LADY    CHAPEL    OF    HENRY    VII 

all,  he  was  great  in  industry.  Like  all  the  famous  artists  of 
this  period,  he  seems  to  have  been  avid  of  work.  These 
monuments  represent  an  enormous  amount  of  sheer  labour ; 
and  it  is  all  done  exquisitely.  Infinite  toil  and  patience  have 
gone  to  their  making :  so  that  it  is  impossible  Torregiano 
could  have  been  a  mere  dilettante  diner-out.  One  sees  him, 
too,  as  of  fine  physique,  which  of  course  he  needs  must  be  to 
accomplish  all  that  labour.  But  it  is  such  a  physique  as  is 
typified  in  the  Penseiir  of  Rodin,  a  vigorous  harmony  of 
mind  and  body — of  generous  emotion,  swift  thought,  and 
strength  at  once  powerful  and  dexterous.  Benvenuto  Cellini 
has  indicated  this  in  a  vivid  word-picture  contained  in  his 
'  Life.'  Into  the  ardent  little  world  in  which  Cellini  was 
living  there  came  about  the  year  1520  "a  sculptor  named 
Piero  Torrigiani,  who  arrived  from  England,  where  he  had 
resided  many  years.  .  .  .  This  man  had  a  splendid  person  and 
a  most  arrogant  spirit,  with  the  air  of  a  great  soldier  more 
than  of  a  sculptor,  especially  in  regard  to  his  vehement 
gestures  and  his  resonant  voice,  together  with  a  habit  he 
had  of  knitting  his  brows  enough  to  frighten  any  man  of 
courage." 

Cellini  does  not  seem  to  have  known  that  Torregiano  had 
in  truth  been  a  soldier ;  but,  in  any  case,  of  course  he  would  be 
vehement.  The  monument  of  Henry  VII  was  not  got  from 
any  feeble,  passionless  creature ;  and  if  the  creator  of  that 
masterpiece  had  not  a  right  to  be  arrogant,  I  wonder  who  has  ? 
While  as  to  the  horrible  frown,  one  sees  it  rather  as  a  bit  of 
stage   '  property,'  donned  for  the   occasion  of  reciting  to   our 

133 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

envious  Cellini  his  "gallant  feats  among  those  beasts  of 
Englishmen."  If  all  the  truth  must  be  told,  however,  it  does 
seem  likely  that  Piero  had  a  habit  of  letting  himself  go  in  the 
Cellini  circle,  in  his  character  of  Odysseus  returned.  One  is 
not  quite  sure  whether  his  epithet  for  the  islanders  is  the 
considered  judgment  of  Torregiano  in  his  workaday  person, 
or  whether  it  is  a  picturesque  word  of  Odysseus  drawing  the 
long  bow ;  but  in  either  case,  among  the  islanders  a  giant  was 
a  giant — though  our  Robert  Vertue,  reputed  architect  of  the 
Lady  Chapel,  was  no  pigmy.  At  home  in  Florence,  however, 
the  giant  was  only  '  one  of  us,'  a  mere  Florentine  craftsman  ; 
and  his  boasting  seems  to  have  pained  Cellini,  who,  doing 
pretty  well  in  that  line  himself,  probably  regarded  Torregiano 
as  an  unfair  competitor.  He  does  not  say  quite  that ;  but 
alleges  for  his  obvious  dislike  a  truly  prodigious  cause : 
namely,  that  our  Piero  did,  on  a  certain  fateful  day,  strike 
Michelangelo  on  the  nose — and  break  it. 

It  is  a  lamentable  thing  to  have  to  record  of  the  spirit 
which  conceived  the  noble  gravity  of  Henry's  effigy,  and  the 
delicate  grace  of  the  birds  which  adorn  the  marble  border 
below,  but  there  it  is.  And  somehow  I  do  not  think  Cellini 
invented  it,  although  he  was  quite  capable  of  doing  so.  The 
story  is  supposed  to  be  given  in  Torregiano's  own  words,  in  the 
translation  of  J.  A.  Symonds,  and  it  relates  the  event  as  happening 
when  he  and  Michelangelo  were  young  fellow-students  : 

It  was  Buonarroti's  habit  to  banter  all  who  were  drawing  there,  and 
one  day  among  others,  when  he  was  annoying  me,  I  got  more  angry  than 
usual,  and  clenching  my  fist,  gave  him  such  a  blow  on  the  nose,  that  I 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII 

felt  bone  and  cartilage  go  down  like  biscuit  beneath  my  knuckles ;  and 
this  mark  of  mine  he  will  carry  to  his  grave. 

Horrid  spectacle  I  And  sad  downfall  of  our  ideal  monu- 
ment-maker— a  ruffian  who  goes  about  smashing  noses — and 
such  noses !  Yet  of  course  it  is  in  character,  and  therefore 
probably  true.  And  if  there  is  any  touch  of  Cellini's  fertile 
imagination  in  the  story,  probably  it  is  only  in  ascribing  to 
this  event,  and  not  to  jealousy,  his  hatred  of  Torregiano  : 

These  words  begat  in  me  such  hatred  of  the  man,  since  I  was 
always  gazing  at  the  masterpieces  of  the  divine  Michel-Agnolo,  that 
although  I  felt  a  wish  to  go  with  him  to  England,  I  now  could  never 
bear  the  sight  of  him. 

And    the   loss   to  the    "beasts  of  Englishmen"  was  probably 
greater  than  they  would  have  supposed. 

The  directions  in  Henry's  will  are  still  the  best  general 
description  of  his  tomb.  There  was,  in  fact,  an  estimate 
actually  made  during  his  lifetime,  to  plans  prepared  by 
Paganino ;  but  apparently  because  those  plans  did  not  properly 
conform  to  his  father's  wishes  Henry  VI H  rejected  them, 
and  gave  the  contract  to  Torregiano.  The  will,  after  defining 
the  position  of  the  tomb,  continues  : 

In  which  place  we  Wol,  that  for  the  said  Sepulture  of  us  and  our 
derest  late  wif  the  Ouene,  whose  soule  God  pardone,  be  made  a  Towmbe 
of  Stone  called  touche,  sufficient  in  largieur  for  us  booth  ;  And  upon  the 
same,  oon  ymage  of  our  figure,  and  an  other  of  hers,  either  of  them  of 
copure  and  gilte.  .  .  .  And  in  the  borders  of  the  same  towmbe,  bee  made 
a  convenient  scripture,  conteigning  the  yeres  of  our  reigne,  and  the  daie 
and  yere  of  our  decesse.     And  in  the  sides,  and  both  ends  of  our  said 

135 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

towmbe,  in  the  said  touche  under  the  said  bordure,  we  Wol  tabernacles 
be  graven,  and  the  same  be  filled  with  Ymages,  sp'cially  of  our  said 
avouries,  of  coper  and  gilte. 

It  will  be  seen  therefore  that  the  monument  is  in  '  touch- 
stone,' or  black  marble ;  and  that  it  is  in  two  stages  :  a  , 
basement  in  which  there  are  '  tabernacles '  containing  figures 
of  the  King's  patron  saints  ;  and  an  upper  stage  on  which  lie  the 
figures  of  the  King  and  Queen,  in  bronze-gilt.  Its  shape  is 
that  of  a  simple  altar-tomb,  and  is  a  surprising  English 
characteristic  in  a  Renaissance  work.  It  was,  however, 
conditioned  by  the  terms  of  Henry's  will.  He  had  in  mind, 
no  doubt,  the  tombs  that  stand  in  the  Confessor's  Chapel ;  and 
probably  he  envisaged  the  tabernacles  for  his  patron  saints 
or  avouries  (there  were  ten  of  them,  and  all  were  named)  as 
little  Gothic  niches  like  those  containing  the  'weepers'  on 
the  Presbytery  tombs.  But  our  Italian  Torregiano  had  other 
ideas  on  the  subject.  He  complied  obediently  with  the  altar- 
tomb  shape ;  but  there,  or  almost  there,  his  stock  of  docility 
gave  out.  And  even  in  that  particular,  one  sees  his  ingenuity 
playing  about  the  plain  command  like  tongues  of  fire  about 
a  rigid  metal,  until  it  flows  to  something  nearer  his  conception 
of  what  a  great  King's  monument  should  be.  The  native 
idea  was  as  Henry  expressed  it,  a  tomb  "  sufficient  in  largieur" 
for  the  recumbent  effigies ;  and  Torregiano  makes  a  show  of 
carrying  this  out.  But  in  his  head  was  burgeoning  more 
magnificence  than  this  size  allowed,  so  he  contrived  to  make 
it  much  bigger  than  was  prescribed  by  English  custom. 
One  notes  that  the  two  figures  lie  on  a  slab  of  marble  and 
136 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII 

that  the  slab  is  precisely  measured  to  contain  them  and  the 
two  lions  that  couch  at  their  feet.  But  the  slab  rests  upon 
a  concave  moulding,  or  cavetto,  whose  lower  edge  projects  far 
beyond  its  upper  surface  ;  and  the  cavetto  in  turn  rests  upon 
another  slab  which  surmounts  the  basement,  and  which  is 
still  wider  than  the  cavetto.  Thus  is  contrived  a  tomb  of 
much  greater  dimensions  than  a  simple  altar-tomb,  giving  the 
artist  scope  for  a  splendid  scheme  of  enrichment. 

The  basement,  as  has  been  said,  is  in  black  marble ; 
but  the  cavetto,  which  so  gracefully  bears  up  the  effigies,  is 
a  white  marble  arabesque  very  elaborately  carved  with  a  design 
of  foliage  and  the  most  enchanting  birds.  And  the  effect  of 
this  rich  white  frieze,  curving  inward  and  upward  between  the 
two  black  slabs,  is  striking  and  beautiful  in  the  extreme. 
At  each  corner  of  it,  poised  in  a  sitting  posture  on  the  black 
ledge,  is  a  plump  and  jolly  Renaissance  cherub  (fully  clothed) 
which,  unlike  the  Gothic  tomb  angels  that  they  represent,  are 
by  no  means  engaged  in  their  proper  task  of  watching  the 
King  and  Queen,  to  be  ready  to  bear  away  the  departing 
souls.  No,  they  sit  with  their  backs  to  majesty ;  and  quite 
unconscious  of  anything  so  solemn  as  death,  hold  up  the 
King's  shield  in  a  gesture  full  of  life. 

There  were,  as  we  have  seen,  ten  patron  saints  named  by 
Henry  to  occupy  the  niches  in  his  tomb.  The  figure  of  the 
Virgin  would  also  find  a  place  there,  as  a  matter  of  course  ;  and 
it  would  be  necessary  to  add  another  saint  to  make  a  round 
dozen  of  images.  But  our  artist  did  not  in  the  least  intend  to 
divide  that  noble  surface  into  twelve  narrow  compartments,  or 

137 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

*  tabernacles.'  That  would  not  accord  with  the  breadth  and 
splendour  which  he  designed.  Therefore  he  did  not  cut  away 
the  marble  at  all ;  but  divided  it  into  compartments,  and  he 
made  as  few  of  them  as  possible.  There  are  only  three 
compartments  on  each  long  side ;  and  between  them,  and  at 
each  end,  are  placed  pilasters  of  gilded  bronze  ornamented  by 
a  design  of  vases,  with  foliage,  and  Henry's  badges  of  the 
portcullis  and  the  rose.  Within  each  compartment  the  artist 
then  carved,  in  high  relief  in  the  marble  itself,  a  great  wreath  of 
fruit  and  flowers,  superimposed  upon  laurel  leaves;  and  within 
each  wreath  again  he  placed  a  pair  of  finely  modelled  saints  cast 
in  bronze.  Thus  he  solved  very  charmingly  the  problem  of 
accommodating  all  the  twelve  figures,  while  getting  the  utmost 
value  out  of  the  material  itself,  and  adding  to  it  the  enrichment 
of  a  great  deal  of  delicate  sculpture. 

The  space  at  the  east  end  of  the  basement  is  filled  by  two 
more  jolly  cherubim — naked,  these — who  hold  up  a  crown  above 
the  King's  shield.  They,  also,  are  splendidly  modelled,  and  are 
in  bronze-gilt.  The  corresponding  space  at  the  west  end 
contains  work  which  authorities  on  the  subject  declare  not  to  be 
from  Torregiano's  hand  at  all,  but  English.  The  design  is  a 
great  rose — chief  of  Henry's  many  emblems  because  it  signified 
the  union  of  York  and  Lancaster — supported  between  a  grey- 
hound and  a  dragon.  Apparently  when  it  came  to  modelling 
beasts,  or  questions  of  heraldry,  the  native  craftsman  could  do 
better  than  the  foreigner.  Round  the  base  of  the  tomb  are 
mouldings  of  white  marble,  and  another  carved  band  with  an 
arabesque  design  of  foliage,  with  the  rose  reappearing  at 
138 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII 

intervals.  The  '  convenient  scripture '  ordained  by  the  King 
runs  round  the  '  bordure '  just  below  the  effigies. 

Of  the  effigies  themselves,  one  can  of  course  see  very  little, 
Avhether  by  craning  one's  neck  from  the  inside  of  the  chantry, 
or  by  climbing  into  a  stall  of  a  Knight  of  the  Bath  and  trying 
to  look  down  upon  them  from  outside.  One  has  therefore  to  fill 
out  such  glimpses  by  the  study  of  drawings  and  photographs, 
and  by  the  descriptions  of  those  who  have  had  the  good  fortune 
to  compass  a  close  and  careful  inspection.  The  little  that  one 
can  see,  however,  does  warrant  one  in  accepting,  without  too 
great  an  act  of  faith,  the  enthusiastic  praise  that  has  been 
bestowed  on  these  images  by  persons  '  who  know.'  According 
to  Mr  Alfred  Higgins,  the  recumbent  statues  and  the  four 
angels  at  the  corners  of  the  tomb  are  "extraordinarily  fine." 
In  the  effigies 

the  style  is  particularly  broad,  and  yet  the  personal  character  of  both 
King  and  Queen  are  powerfully  indicated,  not  only  in  the  faces,  but  in 
the  hands  also,  which  are  of  an  astonishing  perfection  of  modelling.  The 
disposition  of  the  robes  is  simple  and  not  wanting  in  grandeur,  and  the 
lions  on  which  the  King  and  Queen  rest  their  feet  are,  in  spirit,  worthy 
of  the  finest  period  of  the  sculptor's  art. 

And  Professor  Lethaby,  speaking  of  this  tomb,  together  with 
that  of  the  Lady  Margaret,  says  : 

The  three  portrait  statues  are  truly  magnificent  works  of  art,  both 
in  their  design  and  modelling.  Although  so  splendid,  they  are  yet 
simple,  quiet  and  serious,  and  the  faces  and  hands  are  entirely  noble.  .  .  . 
These  are  altogether  the  greatest  sculptures  ever  wrought  in  England." 

So  we  are  brought  back  at  last  to  the  tomb  of  Margaret 

139 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Beaufort,  the  King's  mother.  But  there  is  really  very  little 
that  can  be  added  now  except  that,  of  the  same  general  design 
as  the  King's  monument,  it  is  yet  of  a  simpler  and  a  more 
perfect  grace.  The  effigy  is  certainly  an  even  more  consummate 
work.  I  cannot  remember  anything  in  sculpture  of  such  com- 
plete loveliness.  One  asks  oneself  again  and  again  the  secret  of 
beauty  which  is  as  quiet  and  unselfconscious  as  work  of  the 
great  Greek  age,  and  which  yet  has  an  added  power  of  sweetness 
and  significance.  Then,  as  one  reads  the  tender  austerity  and 
gentle  strength  which  the  sculptor  has  put  into  the  lines  of  the 
face,  into  the  wimple  about  the  head  and  the  folds  of  the  dress, 
but  above  all  into  those  exquisite  wrinkled  hands,  one  begins  to 
understand  why  the  statue  is  so  deeply  satisfying.  The  great 
artist  and  the  great  opportunity  were  happily  met :  Torregiano 
had  his  chance — to  make  permanent  a  completely  noble  human 
soul — and  he  seized  it  triumphantly.  So  here  is  the  final 
expression  of  a  supreme  thing ;  and  (it  is  worth  remarking, 
remembering  the  spot  on  which  we  stand)  both  the  art  and 
the  spirit  which  it  sought  to  perpetuate  were  born  of  that 
religion  which  built  this  chapel  to  "oure  lady  Saincte  Mary, 
vcray  moder  and  virgin,  Welle  of  pitie  and  surest  refuge  of  al 
nedefull." 

There  is  a  story  (which  Mr  Higgins  says  is  at  least  not 
disproved)  that  Torregiano  came  by  his  end  at  the  hands  of  the 
Spanish  Inquisition.  Not  that  the  Inquisition  actually  killed 
him ;  but  he  having,  in  a  fit  of  his  fierce  temper,  broken  up  a 
Virgin  and  Child  that  he  had  made  in  terra-cotta,  he  was 
thrown  into  prison.  And  there,  in  remorse,  he  starved  himself 
140 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII 

to  death.  The  story  may  not  be  correct ;  but  it  is  true  in  the 
sense  of  being  characteristic,  both  of  the  man  and  of  the  age. 
At  any  rate  we  may  as  well  set  it  against  this  other  tale — that 
he  agreed  to  make  an  altar  for  Henry's  chapel,  but  having 
received  payment  of  a  thousand  pounds  in  advance,  he  ran 
away  to  spend  it  on  a  holiday,  leaving  the  work  incomplete. 
They  brought  him  back,  of  course,  and  he  finished  the  altar ; 
but  only  fragments  of  it  remain.  They  may  be  seen  preserved 
in  the  communion  table  which  Dean  Stanley  erected  on  the 
site  of  the  old  high  altar  of  the  Lady  Chapel. 


141 


CHAPTER  IX :  The  Lady  Chapel  of 

Henry  VII 

II 

THE  exterior  of  the  Lady  Chapel  has  been  entirely 
restored.  The  stone  with  which  it  had  been  origin- 
ally built  was  brought  from  the  Huddlestone 
quarries  in  Yorkshire;  and  it  stood  for  about  three  hundred 
years ;  but  by  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  had 
become  very  badly  weathered.  No  stone  has  yet  been  dis- 
covered which  will  withstand  the  acid  bite  of  the  London 
air;  and  that  the  exterior  of  the  Lady  Chapel  lasted  so  long 
as  it  did,  only  serves  to  remind  us  that  in  those  days 
Londoners  did  not  burn  so  much  coal,  and  therefore  did  not 
pour  into  their  atmosphere  the  smoke  that  our  multitudinous 
chimneys  are  daily  allowed  to  vomit  into  it,  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  life  and  beauty. 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  condition  of  the 
building  gave  cause  for  anxiety;  and  Parliament  was  asked 
for  money  with  which  to  repair  it.  A  first  grant  was  made 
and  the  work  was  begun.  The  scheme  adopted  was  that  of 
the  advising  architect  of  the  day,  Wyatt,  who  appears  to 
have  been  the  greatest  perpetrator  of  restorations  of  that 
purblind  restoring  period.  He  was,  however,  in  this  case, 
supported  by  a  high-handed  Dean ;  for  when  Parliament,  by 
taking  counsel  with  certain  lovers  of  great  art,  would  have 
restrained  Wyatt's  iconoclasm,  the  Dean  ordered  the  Abbey 
mason  to  follow  out  the  original  plan.  And  the  mason  did 
so,  cutting  away  the  entire  outer  surface  of  the  building. 
142 


THE    LADY    CHAPEL    OF    HENRY    VII 

By  no  means  all  of  it  needed  to  be  replaced.  The  chief 
mason  stated  in  evidence  that  a  great  deal  of  the  work  on  the 
north  side  was  still  fresh  and  good.  But  away  it  went,  all 
shorn  off  in  conscientious  pursuit  of  our  little  English  ideal 
of  neatness  and  uniformity.  With  the  result  that  the 
whole  of  the  surface  visible  to-day  is  new.  It  is,  of  course, 
a  very  thoroughgoing  and  careful  bit  of  work;  but  it  is 
copyist's  work,  and  therefore  lacks  much  of  the  interest  and 
beauty  of  the  original. 

Indeed  one  is  lucky,  thinking  of  the  incident  a  little,  if 
one  is  let  off  with  such  a  mild  feeling  as  boredom.  William 
Morris  could  not  escape  so  easily.  When  I  quoted  in  the 
previous  chapter  his  dictum  that  the  Lady  Chapel  was  the 
"  most  romantic  work  of  the  late  Middle  Ages,"  I  did  not 
give  the  complete  passage.     Here  it  is  : 

Mr  Wyatt  managed  to  take  all  the  romance  out  of  the  exterior 
of  this  most  romantic  work  of  the  late  Middle  Ages 

— which,  I  think  it  will  be  agreed,  presents  the  same  fact  with 
a  rather  sad  difference. 

One  notes  with  relief,  however,  that  this  lament  does  not 
apply  to  the  interior  of  the  chapel ;  and  moreover,  those  of  us 
who  are  not  so  highly  tuned,  artistically,  as  William  Morris 
was  (and  not  quite  all  of  us  are)  can  still  extract  interest  of  a 
kind  from  the  restored  exterior.  For  there  remain,  when 
everything  is  said  about  restoring  criminals,  the  noble  shape, 
the  fine  proportion,  and  lovely  lines :  the  audacious  window- 
scheme,  as  it  were  in  a  ripple  of  glass  about  the  fabric ;  and 

143 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

the  conscious  leap  of  the  flying  buttresses,  which  might  be  the 
very  gesture  by  which  this  Tudor  style  declares  its  magnificence 
and  acknowledges  our  acclamation. 

There  are  other  things  also  which,  mercifully,  could  not 
be  shorn  away.  Fourteen  octagonal  buttress-towers  stand 
about  the  chapel,  six  at  either  side  and  two  at  the  east  end, 
from  which  the  flying  buttresses  spring  to  support  the  vault 
and  roof.  These  towers  rise  tall  and  graceful,  straight  from 
the  ground  to  a  considerable  height  above  the  parapet  of  the 
aisles.  Each  terminates  in  an  octagonal  dome,  richly  finished 
with  cornice,  crocket,  and  finial. 

The  windows  are  a  source  of  unfailing  wonder  and  delight. 
Behind  and  between  the  buttress-towers  rise,  in  three  tiers, 
the  windows  of  the  clerestory.  They  are  lofty,  elaborately 
traceried,  and  so  broad  as  to  occupy  all  the  wall-space  of  the 
nave.  Indeed,  the  whole  skeleton  of  the  Lady  Chapel  may 
be  said  to  be  composed  of  window,  supported  by  buttresses. 
For  all  round  the  aisles  and  eastern  end  the  walls  are  filled 
with  mullioned  glass,  slanted  and  bent  with  the  utmost  vivacity 
into  round. or  pointed  shapes.  Fourteen  tall  windows  run  in 
this  fashion  about  the  first  stage  of  the  Lady  Chapel.  In  the 
aisles  they  are  embowed  :  and  in  the  small  eastern  chapels 
they  are  pointed  outward  at  angles  which  suggest  works  of 
the  jewellers'  art.  The  flying  buttresses,  too,  have  not  only  the 
beauty  of  line  and  poise,  but  must  needs  be  pierced  by  circles, 
and  the  circles  elaborately  foiled  ;  while  beasts  from  Henry 
VII's  quarterings,  carved  in  high  relief,  creep  down  their  steeply 
slanting  edges. 
144 


THE    LADY    CHAPEL    OF    HENRY    VII 

On  the  subject  of  ornament,  however,  we  collide  again 
with  that  inflammatory  restoring  difficulty.  It  is  asserted 
that  the  detail  which  covers  so  profusely  the  surface  of  the 
stone  is  an  exact  rendering  of  what  it  replaced.  And  while 
admitting  the  truth  that  even  if  so,  it  is  only  "  a  copy  of  that 
which  cannot  be  copied,"  we  more  or  less  normal  people  need 
not  find  our  temperature  rising  to  danger  point  on  that  account. 
We  shall  keep  cool  enough  to  note  that  the  decoration  is  generally 
in  keeping  with  the  architectural  exuberance  of  the  building, 
and  in  two  ways  especially  does  it  stress  the  scheme  of  the 
earlier  work — by  covering  practically  every  inch  of  the  stone 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  resemble  an  embroidered  edifice  ; 
and  by  taking  Henry's  arms  as  the  chief  motif  of  the 
adornment. 

It  is,  in  one  sense  at  any  rate,  a  fortunate  circumstance 
that  Henry  VII  was  something  of  an  amateur  of  heraldry;  for 
otherwise  the  ornamentation  of  his  Lady  Chapel  must  have 
been  a  monotonous  and  tiresome  affair.  But,  luckily,  he 
collected  arms  with  as  much  assiduity  (though  with  not  quite 
the  same  passion)  as  Henry  III  collected  artists.  That  earlier 
Henry,  however,  acted  from  a  bigger  impulse  and  on  a  larger 
scale :  he  was,  indeed,  a  much  more  royal  man.  One  sees 
Henry  VII  gathering  'bagies'  of  York,  Lancaster,  and  Tudor, 
of  France  and  the  ancient  kings  of  Britain,  with  the  pl-ofound 
anxiety  of  a  bourgeois  or  a  newly-rich  who  has  just  acquired  a 
title,  and  who  spends  laborious  days  at  the  College  of  Heralds 
in  the  exhausting  hunt  for  a  pedigree.  So  that,  added  to  the 
roses  of  York  and  Lancaster,  the  King  must  have  the  further 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

support  not  only  of  the  portcullis,  altera  securitas,  as  he  called 
it,  but  of  the  greyhound  and  the  fetterlock  from  his  Queen, 
Elizabeth  of  York :  the  crown  on  the  bush  to  commemorate 
Bosworth  Field :  the  fleur-de-lys  of  his  "graunt  dame  of  right 
noble  memorie,"  Katherine  of  Valois ;  and  the  red  Tudor 
dragon  to  claim  descent  from  that  ancient  Arthur.  The  result 
is  at  any  rate  a  happy  diversity  in  the  decoration  of  the  Lady 
Chapel,  which  Henry  expressly  willed  should  be,  within  and 
without,  adorned  with  his  "armes,  bagies,  and  cognoisaunts." 
Hence,  on  the  exterior,  the  lion,  greyhound,  and  dragon  recur 
on  battlement  and  flying  buttress ;  and  hence,  from  the 
mouldings  just  above  the  plinth  right  up  to  the  parapet,  the 
repetition  at  every  effective  point  of  the  rose,  portcullis  and 
fleur-de-lys. 

When  we  enter  the  Lady  Chapel  we  find  a  constant  use  of 
the  same  motif;  but  here  it  is  a  complementary  enrichment  and 
part  of  the  original  design  and  handiwork.  The  almost  over- 
whelming sense  of  splendour  that  falls  on  us  here  is  not  due 
so  much  to  the  scheme  of  decoration  as  to  large  architectural 
features,  chief  of  which  is  of  course  the  amazing  vault.  I  think 
it  is  a  good  plan,  in  visiting  the  Lady  Chapel,  deliberately  to 
see  it  by  itself,  without  reference  to  the  rest  of  the  Abbey. 
What  has  been  finely  called  the  "  solemn  architectural  pause  " 
at  its  entrance  is  significant  of  many  things,  not  the  least  of 
which  is  that  the  chapel  is  the  work  of  a  later  date,  of  a  newer 
race  of  men  and  a  fresh  development  in  art,  from  the  Abbey 
itself.  To  pass  immediately  from  the  church  to  the  chapel  is 
to  react,  perhaps  violently,  against  something  so  different : 
146 


THE    LADY    CHAPEL    OF    HENRY    VII 

though  here,  of  course,  one  is  not  referring  to  the  whirligig 
tour,  personally  conducted  by  a  verger — all  that  is  in  effect 
possible  to  long-suffering  Britishers  who  wish  to  see  the 
most  precious  possession  of  their  race,  on  every  day  of  the 
week  except  one.  When  the  whole  place  is  thus  reduced  to 
a  kaleidoscopic  jumble,  it  cannot  matter  much  whether  one 
rushes  from  the  Abbey  into  the  Lady  Chapel  or  from  the  Lady 
Chapel  into  the  Abbey — or  whether  one  does  not  go  there 
at  all.  But  coming  with  some  sense  of  what  is  due  to  this 
'  miracle  of  the  world,'  and  to  one's  own  soul,  and  having 
therefore  tuned  oneself  to  the  noble  simplicity  of  Henry  Ill's 
church,  we  may  find  the  sudden  vision  of  the  Lady  Chapel 
too  magnificent  for  our  taste.  For  some  people  it  will 
always  be,  for  that  reason,  the  less  satisfying.  But  if  one 
comes  to  it  for  itself,  eliminating  any  comparative  judgment, 
one  is  at  least  free  to  perceive  its  peculiar  and  astonishing 
merit. 

Ascending  the  flight  of  steps  which  lead  from  the 
ambulatory  to  the  Lady  Chapel,  we  stand  within  the  porch. 
There  is  something  which  always  stops  one  irresistibly  here. 
Perhaps  we  feel  obscurely  the  crowding  associations  of  a  spot 
which  is  the  meeting-place  of  so  many  centuries :  for  at  the 
foot  of  these  steps  is  the  junction  of  three  eras  of  history,  where 
the  work  of  Henry  III  and  his  men,  and  Henry  V  and  his  men, 
joins  hands  with  this  latest  and  most  splendid  achievement  of 
English  genius  and  workmanship.  It  may  be  that  one  does, 
subconsciously,  realize  a  little  of  all  that  this  means.  Or  perhaps 
it  is  the  dramatic  power  of  the  porch  which,  like  that  of  the 

147 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

vestibule  to  the  Chapter  House,  gathers  closely  about  us, 
focussing  our  attention  and  holding  us  for  a  moment  in  the 
shadow  of  suspense,  so  that  the  magnificence  of  the  chapel  may- 
break  upon  us  like  a  revelation. 

The  porch  is,  indeed,  a  very  carefully  designed  introduction 
to  the  beauty  beyond  it,  not  only  in  this  concentrating  and 
revealing  power,  but  in  its  actual  details.  It  has  three  arches, 
one  large  and  two  small,  corresponding  to  the  three  main 
divisions  of  the  chapel  itself.  The  stone  vault  that  roofs  it, 
and  its  walls,  are  similarly  wrought  in  panelling  over  the  whole 
surface,  and  ornamented  with  Henry's  badges ;  and  on  the 
summit  of  the  small  pillars  at  the  entrance  stand  the  King's 
lion,  dragon,  and  greyhound. 

The  bronze  gates  are  a  work  to  return  upon,  but  one 
hardly  notices  them  at  first,  so  surprisingly  does  the  view  of 
the  chapel  fall  upon  us.  It  is  in  this  first  shock  of  feeling  that 
the  peculiar  character  of  the  architecture  manifests  itself.  For 
what  prevails  at  that  moment  is  not  a  clear  exaltation  of  spirit 
such  as  is  evoked  by  some  austere  consummate  unity  in  art, 
but  an  amazed  and  admiring  wonder.  We  are  smitten  with 
confusion :  so  many  kinds  of  splendour  claim  attention  ;  and 
such  prodigal  richness  and  variety  press  upon  us.  Dominating 
all,  of  course,  is  the  marvel  of  the  vault ;  but  then  there  is  the 
hardly  less  wonderful  lighting  scheme,  and  the  vast  arch  which, 
rising  from  north  and  south  and  passing  across  the  centre  of  the 
building,  clasps  the  whole,  as  it  were,  in  powerful  and  lovely 
arms,  while  all  round  the  building  crowd  the  beauties  of 
various  sculpture,  the  carved  wood  of  stalls,  the  carved  stone 
148 


THE    LADY    CHAPEL    OF    HENRY    VII 

of  panelling  and  tracery,  and  the  carving  of  a  multitude  of  old 
statues  in  their  niches. 

The  Lady  Chapel  is  divided  into  nave,  a  north  and  a  south 
aisle,  and  five  small  eastern  chapels.  Observing  its  proportions, 
a  flaw  is  seen  in  the  interior  which  is  not  visible  from  outside. 
For  the  nave  is  extremely  wide,  and  the  aisles  are  too  narrow  to 
give  full  effect  to  so  ornate  a  style.  Their  great  tombs,  too, 
overcrowd  the  aisles  ;  so  that  with  their  narrowness  and  their 
congestion  one  cannot  see  half  their  beauty.  That,  however, 
does  not  spoil  their  interest  of  association.  The  south  aisle  is 
the  resting-place  of  the  Lady  Margaret,  and  is  named  after  her 
the  Margaret  Chapel.  In  it  also  is  the  tomb  of  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots,  who  was  brought  here  from  her  burial-place  in  Peter- 
borough Cathedral  in  the  year  1612.  James  I,  who  raised  this 
lofty  monument  to  his  mother's  memory,  seems  to  have  chosen 
deliberately  a  site  and  a  design  to  correspond  with  that  of 
Elizabeth's  tomb  in  the  north  aisle,  so  that  Mary  might  lie  in  as 
great  state  as  the  Queen  who  beheaded  her.  In  this  south 
aisle,  too,  lie  Margaret  Lennox  and  a  host  of  minor  Stuarts ; 
but  its  chief  aesthetic  interest,  apart  of  course  from  the 
consummate  tomb  of  Margaret  Beaufort,  is  a  medallion  of  Sir 
Thomas  Lovel  which  hangs  close  by,  also  the  work  of 
Torregiano.  And  the  lovely  statue  of  Lady  Walpole  has  a 
grace  that  is  charmingly  matched  in  the  epitaph  by  Horace 
Walpole,  her  son. 

The  great  feature  of  the  north  aisle  is  the  tomb  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  from  which  it  is  called  after  her  the  Elizabeth 
Chapel.     Her  sister  Queen  Mary  lies  in  the  same  vault ;  and 

149 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

over   the  two  is  written  this  inscription,  innocent  of  irony '^as 
the  Leveller  himself  who  brought  the  sisters  here  together: 

Tenants  alike  of  throne  and  grave,  we  sisters,  Elizabeth  and  Mary, 
He  sleeping  here  in  hope  of  the  Resurrection. 

Near  the  door  of  this  chapel  that  is  sacred  to  great  and 
spacious  days  lies  Addison,  urbane  type  of  so  different  an  age. 
And  echoing  the  eighteenth  century  even  in  his  grave,  he  lies 
humbly  at  the  feet  of  his  patron,  Lord  Halifax. 

Though  it  is  almost  impossible  to  appreciate  the  architec- 
tural features  of  the  aisles  on  account  of  their  narrowness,  one 
can  at  least  realize  the  beauty  of  the  windows.  Each  of  the 
four  divisions  of  each  aisle  has  its  embowed  window  filled  with 
mullioned  glass ;  and  each  window  is  in  four  tiers.  Lovely  as 
they  are  now,  they  must  have  been  a  fairy  spectacle  in  their 
original  stained  glass.  Only  a  few  fragments  of  the  old  glass 
have  survived,  embedded,  here  and  there  a  bit,  in  the  clear  glass 
of  the  present  windows. 

At  the  east  end  of  each  aisle  some  fine  old  sculptured 
figures  still  stand.  They  are  larger  than  the  statues  in  the  nave, 
and  are  considered  to  be  of  older  and  better  work.  They  stand 
proudly,  each  on  a  graceful  pedestal  within  a  canopied  niche ; 
and  over  their  heads  the  King's  beasts  are  carved.  In  the 
north  aisle  are  a  vested  priest,  a  crowned  king  who  is  probably 
Henry  VII  (since  the  founder  usually  occupies  an  important 
north  position),  and  St  Lawrence.  In  the  south  aisle,  or 
Margaret  Chapel,  the  middle  niche  is  empty  ;  but  of  the  other 
two  figures  one  is,  fittingly,  St  Margaret,  and  the  other  is  St 
150 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII 

Katharine.  Below  the  niches  runs  a  string-course  of  foliage 
and  a  frieze  of  demi-angels,  supporting  between  them  the 
rose,  portcullis,  and  fleur-de-lys,  all  crowned. 

The  five  small  eastern  chapels  continue  the  rippling 
window  scheme  of  the  aisles,  which  thus  runs  completely  round 
the  first  stage  of  the  Lady  Chapel.  Here,  however,  they  are 
not  embowed,  as  in  the  aisles,  but  are  even  more  elaborate. 
For  they  slant  out  at  three  different  angles,  the  middle 
projection  forming  a  sharp  point ;  and  each  window  is  cut  into 
forty-eight  separate  divisions. 

The  side  walls  of  these  chapels,  like  the  end  walls  of  the 
aisles,  are  occupied  by  a  range  of  noble  old  statues.     In   the 
easternmost  chapel,  on  the  north  side,  is  a  curious  representa- 
tion of  St  Nicholas,  the  children's  saint.     The  saint  is  carved 
as  a  bishop,  vested  for  Mass  and  holding  a  crozier  at  his  left 
shoulder.     In  his  left  hand  he  carries  a  small  round  marketing 
basket,  in  which  sits  a  fat  baby ;  and  his  right  hand  is  raised  to 
bless  the  infant.     In  this  chapel,  too,  which  by  its  position  in 
the  extreme  east  is  the  most  important  in  the  building,  is  an 
empty  niche   where   is   supposed  to  have   been   the   statue   of 
Henry    VI.      The    initials    '  H.    R.*    between    a    rose    and    a 
pomegranate  appear  at  its  base ;  and  it  is  known  that  here  his 
shrine  was   to   have  been  placed,  when   he   should  have   been 
canonized.     On    the   opposite    wall   are   found,   as   one   would 
expect,  images  of  the  founder  of  the  Abbey  and  of  its  patron 
saint.     Here   are    Edward    the   Confessor   and  St  Peter,  with 
St  Edmund  King  and  Martyr  to  complete  a  symmetrical  group 
of  three. 

151 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

In  the  south-east  chapel  all  the  six  original  figures 
remain,  and  four  of  them  are  sainted  women — SS.  Mary, 
Martha,  Dorothy,  and  Apollonia.  One  is  reminded  yet  again 
of  the  aisles  dedicated  to  Margaret  and  Elizabeth,  of  the 
company  of  holy  women  in  the  range  of  sculptures  round  the 
nave,  and  of  the  double  sense  in  which  this  is  a  Lady 
Chapel.  Perhaps  it  is  for  this  reason  that  its  character  as 
a  Chapel  of  the  Knights  seems  something  of  secondary 
interest,  despite  the  bravery  of  coloured  banners.  Indeed, 
though  Knights  Commanders  of  the  Bath  were  first  created 
by  Richard  II,  the  Order  was  not  installed  here  until  1725. 
In  181 2  there  was  a  second  installation,  and  the  present 
banners  are  those  of  the  Knights  of  the  fourth  installation 
in  1920. 

It  is  in  the  nave,  however,  that  the  architecture  of  the 
chapel  may  best  be  studied,  for  here  are  space  and  a  flood  of 
light  from  the  glorious  clerestory  windows.  Recovered  a  little 
from  the  first  effect  of  confused  surprise  at  its  magnificence, 
one  sets  oneself  the  task  of  trying  to  comprehend  it.  It  is  not 
an  easy  thing  to  do,  especially  if  the  pendants  hanging  from 
the  roof  tease  the  mind  with  a  sense  of  redundance,  or  even 
of  insecurity.  That  feeling  has  to  be  suppressed,  not  only 
because  it  is  irritating,  but  because  it  is  in  fact  ill-founded. 
Mastering  it,  therefore,  and  following  deliberately  the  lines 
of  the  building,  one  sees  first  how  nobly  planned  it  is,  and 
then  the  bold  new  features  which  make  it  so  wonderful  an 
invention. 

Four  great  arches  on  each  side  divide  the  nave  from  the 
152 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII 

aisles,  and  are  repeated  at  the  east  end  round  the  chapels  of 
the  apse.  But  they  do  not  spring,  as  we  are  accustomed  that 
arches  should,  from  pillars :  there  are  in  fact  no  pillars  in 
the  whole  chapel,  for  the  slender  shafts  which  run  up  to  the 
springing  of  the  tracery  are  not  there  for  service,  but  to  satisfy 
the  eye.  Across  the  middle  of  the  chapel,  too,  goes  that 
immense  arch  from  north  to  south,  it  also  apparently  un- 
supported ;  and  hanging  above  our  heads  is  a  forest  of  stone- 
work (one  would  not  like  to  speculate  how  many  hundreds  of 
tons  of  it)  depending  in  intricate  fan  tracery.  But  even  as 
we  are  asking  why  in  the  name  of  wonder  the  vast  masses 
of  masonry  do  not  come  crashing  about  our  heads,  we 
remember  in  time  those  flying  buttresses,  so  elegantly  poised 
and  so  ornamental,  but  so  very  stout  ;  and  the  fourteen 
buttress-towers  that  stand  about  the  chapel,  light  and  charming 
in  the  illusion  of  their  tall  grace,  but  mightily  weighted  under 
their  octagonal  domes. 

It  is  not  long,  therefore,  before  that  impeding  unfamiliarity, 
which  is  like  a  sort  of  aesthetic  shyness,  wears  off;  and  one 
begins  to  see  that  the  old  praisers  of  this  building  spoke  with 
a  sense  of  the  value  of  words  when  they  called  it  a  '  miracle ' 
and  a  '  prodigy.'  It  is  easy  to  understand,  too,  the  force  of 
the  fact  that  this  chapel  pleases  so  many  and  such  diverse 
people  :  that  it  is  immensely  popular  with  those  who  know 
nothing  about  architecture,  and  at  the  same  time  profoundly 
admired  by  those  who  know  all  there  is  to  know  about  it. 
Architects  have  no  manner  of  doubt  of  its  merits.  Cottingham 
in    1822,   when   the   restoration   of  the   exterior  was  finished, 

153 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

said  that  it  was  "  a  perfect  grammar  of  the  architectural  art." 
Mr  Francis  Bond,  in  his  much  more  recent  book,  declares : 
"  The  vault  is  the  most  wonderful  work  of  masonry  ever  put 
together  by  the  hand  of  man."  Professor  Lethaby  says  :  "  As 
geometry  and  stone-cutting  it  is  wonderful."  And  Neale  and 
Brayley,  in  the  first  full  description  of  the  chapel,  speak  of 
"the  utmost  practical  science,"  and  "the  daring  hardihood 
that  could  arrange  and  securely  poise  in  air  such  ponderous 
masses  of  stone,  and  counteract  the  power  of  gravity  by 
professional  skill." 

It  is,  of  course,  to  architects  that  the  reader  must  go  for 
an  adequate  explanation  of  this  wonder  ;  but  there  are  perhaps 
two  points  which  may  be  mentioned  here.  The  first  is  a 
technical  hint  (gathered  from  Mr  Bond's  book)  which  does  help 
toward  an  understanding  of  the  construction  of  the  vault, 
and  to  dissipate  that  uneasy  feeling  that  the  great  pendants, 
resting  apparently  on  air,  must  be  insecure.  Not  that  one 
stands  in  terror,  trembling  lest  they  should  fall.  But  there  is 
a  subconscious  feeling  which,  though  not  realized  as  a  sense 
of  insecurity,  does  for  many  people  hinder  complete  enjoy- 
ment. In  that  fact  there  is  no  doubt  the  implication  of  a 
fault  of  art  in  this  tour  de  force.  But  the  pendants  are,  of 
course,  attached  with  the  utmost  solidity  to  the  arches  that 
cross  the  nave ;  or,  one  ought  rather  to  say,  they  grow  out  of 
the  arches  themselves,  of  which  they  form  an  integral  part. 
They  are,  indeed,  as  much  a  part  of  the  solid  fabric  of  the 
building  as  an  arm  is  part  of  a  body ;  and  like  it,  they  could 
not  be  removed  without  a  surgical  operation.  The  arches 
154 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII 

cannot  be  seen  :  but  imagine  them,  behind  the  lacework  of 
the  tracery,  crossing  the  nave  from  north  to  south.  The 
blocks  of  which  they  are  constructed  necessarily  run  horizon- 
tally, in  the  same  north  and  south  direction.  But  on  each 
side  of  the  nave,  where  our  daring  architect  designed  to  place 
his  pendants,  a  thicker  block  was  inserted  in  the  arch,  projecting 
vertically  down  into  the  nave  for  about  eight  feet.  At  the 
lower  end  of  this  block  was  a  knob ;  and  resting  on  that,  the 
circles  of  the  tracery  began,  small  at  first  but  growing  larger, 
as  some  living  organism,  in  exact  ratio  to  strength,  until  the 
encircled  tracery  spread  over  the  roof  and  met  at  the  apex 
the  outer  rim  of  the  opposite  series.  Thus,  though  the  web 
of  the  vault  has  only  a  thickness  of  about  three  and  a  half 
inches,  and  though  it  is  described  by  those  who  have  been  up 
to  examine  it  as  a  veritable  forest  of  stonework,  yet  it  is  of 
complete  rigidity  and  strength ;  and  nothing  but  an  earth- 
quake— or  it  may  be  a  siege-gun — could  move  it. 

The  other  point  which  may  be  made  now  is  that  of  the 
quite  new  departure  that  the  vault  is  without  ribs.  One 
remembers  how  in  the  Abbey  itself  the  ribs  cross  the  vaults 
and  make  such  a  striking  feature  of  their  beauty.  As  Mr  Bond 
points  out,  for  centuries  the  Gothic  builders  had  packed  more 
and  more  ribs  into  the  vault :  yet  here  at  one  stroke  they  dis- 
appear altogether.  And  it  is  such  bold  features  in  this  new 
Tudor  development  which  warrant  Mr  Bond's  statement  that 
the  architecture  of  the  Lady  Chapel  was  far  in  advance  of 
anything  of  its  time  in  England,  France,  Italy,  or  Spain. 
Which  reminds  us,  and  one  is  glad  to  be  reminded,  that  this 

155 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

miracle  of  the  builders'  art  is  certainly  the  work  of  an  English 
architect,  though  exactly  who  he  was  is  not  so  certain. 

Of  several  possible  names  Robert  Vertue  is  considered  by 
some  to  be  the  most  likely.  In  1509  he  was  acting  as  King's 
Master  Mason.  In  1505  William  Vertue,  son  or  brother  of 
Robert,  was  employed  in  vaulting  the  choir  of  St  George's  Chapel 
at  Windsor,  which  has  some  resemblances  to  our  Lady  Chapel. 
And  Robert  Vertue  was  also  the  designer  of  the  King's  palace 
at  Greenwich.  That  he  was  a  great  scientist  his  modern 
compeers  assert  unanimously.  That  he  was  also  a  great  artist 
the  least  informed  person  inevitably  feels  in  presence  of  this  his 
work  at  Westminster ;  and  all  that  the  most  informed  can  do  is 
to  state  reasons  for  that  conviction.  The  average  person  will 
surely  in  some  measure  share  both  reverence  and  comprehension; 
but  he  will  never,  perhaps,  quite  recover  from  the  embarrassment 
of  so  much  riches.  There  will  for  him  always  be  some  degree 
of  excess  in  the  ornamentation  of  the  Lady  Chapel. 

For  the  whole  chapel  is  practically  overlaid  with  sculpture. 
Immediately  above  the  arches  there  runs  all  round  the  build- 
ing a  frieze  of  demi-angels  carved  in  full  relief.  Quaint  figures 
they  are,  with  thick  curly  hair  and  wings,  and  some  of  them 
covered  with  feathers.  They  support  between  each  two  the 
rose,  portcullis,  and  fleur-de-lys,  crowned.  Above  the  frieze,  and 
filling  the  whole  space  between  it  and  the  clerestory  windows, 
are  elaborately  canopied  niches.  They  extend  in  a  long  range 
round  the  building,  except  at  the  western  end,  and  contain  a 
multitude  of  saints,  martyrs,  and  confessors.  The  size  of  the 
statues  in  this  range  is  three  feet  and  three  inches,  which  is 
156 


THE    LADY    CHAPEL    OF    HENRY    VII 

rather  smaller  than  the  inner  range  of  the  aisles  and  chapels. 
There  is  in  all  a  total  of  about  one  hundred  of  these  images  of 
the  interior,  large  and  small,  most  of  them  still  in  good  con- 
dition ;  but  the  forty-eight  which  once  stood  on  the  outside, 
round  the  domes  of  the  buttress-towers,  were  all  restored  into 
limbo.     Not  one  remains. 

The  range  of  statues  round  the  nave  centres  upon  the 
figure  of  Christ  at  the  eastern  end,  with  the  Virgin  on  one 
hand  and  the  Angel  of  the  Annunciation  on  the  other.  The 
Apostles  follow,  to  right  and  left :  then  come  sainted  women, 
and  then  evangelists  and  doctors,  after  whom  crowd  a  host 
of  saints,  including  all  those  who  were  most  popular  in  the 
England  of  that  day.  But  when  we  have  gazed  with  astonish- 
ment at  this  great  assembly  of  saints  and  angels,  we  have  still 
to  observe  the  treatment  of  the  walls.  Speaking  strictly,  there 
is  little  wall-space  left  by  those  vast  windows  and  the  sculp- 
tured host  of  heaven.  But  every  part  of  it  that  remains  is 
covered  with  a  lovely  design  of  panels  and  window-tracery. 
Thus,  on  either  side  of  the  statues  at  the  east  end  of  each  aisle, 
the  slip  of  space  left  over  is  carved  to  represent  an  elaborately 
traceried  two-light  window  in  stone,  rising  in  three  tiers  and 
enclosed  within  a  tall  pointed  arch.  And  thus,  too,  the  whole 
soffit  of  the  vast  arch  which  crosses  the  Lady  Chapel  from 
north  to  south  is  richly  wrought  over ;  while  at  every  effective 
point,  whether  of  panelling  or  pedestal  or  canopy,  whether 
held  up  by  angels,  or  filling  spandrils,  or  crowning  the 
centres  of  those  immense  circles  of  embroidery  in  the 
vault — or  even  rather  arbitrarily  stuck  on  at  intervals   in   the 

157 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

mouldings  of  the  great  piers — recur  the  ubiquitous  emblems  of 
Henry  VII. 

It  is  perhaps  only  in  returning  to  the  gates  of  the  chapel 
that  this  motif  becomes  a  cause  of  offence.  One  does  not 
realize  fully  until  then  how  constantly  reiterated  are  those 
"  armes,  bagies,  and  cognoisaunts  "  ;  but  in  that  moment  there 
suddenly  crystallizes  into  sharp  outline  a  feeling  that  had  been 
in  the  mind  before  as  something  too  vague  for  shape,  dominated 
and,  so  to  speak,  held  in  solution  by  the  beauty  and  splendour 
of  the  architecture  as  a  whole.  But  here  in  the  gates  the  decora- 
tive motif  itself  is  dominant ;  and  one  instantly  rejects  it  as  a 
thing  altogether  too  small  in  spirit  to  make  possible  a  great  work 
of  art.  And  one  does  not  wonder  any  longer  that  Torregiano 
had  no  hand  in  carving  the  arms  for  the  King's  monument. 

The  gates  of  the  chapel  are  in  three  pairs,  and  are  wrought 
in  gilt-bronze  over  oak.  They  are  hung  under  slightly  pointed 
stone  arches,  into  which  their  own  arches  fit ;  and  they  are 
divided  over  their  whole  superficies  into  oblong  compartments, 
each  containing  one  of  Henry  the  Seventh's  emblems.  There- 
fore about  one  hundred  and  twenty  times  are  the  King's  badges 
repeated  in  these  gates,  as  their  principal  motif,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  all-but-countless  times  that  the  rose  and  the  dragon  recur 
as  heads  to  the  very  rivets  of  the  framework.  Satiety  descends 
on  one.  Useless  to  tell  oneself  that  the  proportions  of  the 
gates  are  good,  that  the  designing  of  the  emblems  is  intricate 
and  beautiful,  and  that  the  execution  is  fine.  The  mind  refuses 
to  respond.  It  can  catch  no  spark  of  enthusiasm  where  there  is 
no  fire  of  inspiration. 
158 


THE  LADY  CHAPEL  OF  HENRY  VII 

Perhaps  in  one's  inner  consciousness  there  remains  a 
memory  of  certain  other  gates,  also  at  the  entrance  of  a  sacred 
building,  the  Ghiberti  gates  of  the  Baptistery  at  Florence.  Not 
that  one  would  do  the  English  artist  the  injustice  to  compare 
his  work  with  them,  for  the  principal  reason  that  they  were  not 
commissioned  by  a  king  who  rode  a  hobby-horse  of  heraldry. 
But  there  stays  the  vision  of  them — things  poetical,  exquisite, 
hallowed  by  the  infinite  patient  love  of  the  artist  and  the 
infinite  beauty  of  the  sacred  stories  that  he  made  to  live  again 
in  the  stubborn  metal — a  high  mark  which  the  English  artist 
might  well  have  come  a  little  nearer  to,  had  not  his  hands  been 
tied.  The  gates  of  Paradise,  Michelangelo  once  called  them ; 
— but  what  are  these  ?  What  might  they  not  have  been,  indeed, 
as  a  worthy  entrance  to  this  Lady  Chapel  and  a  symbol  of 
all  that  it  means,  if  the  artist  had  been  free — emulating  the 
audacity  of  the  architect,  stimulated  by  his  high  spirits, 
rejoicing  in  his  exuberance,  matching  his  agility  of  mind  and 
hand  ?  But  on  him  fell  that  command,  paralysing  his  genius. 
Is  it  fanciful  to  see,  in  the  making  of  these  gates,  the  first  sign 
in  English  art  of  an  insidious  English  vice  ?  Perhaps ;  and 
yet  it  is  very  certain  that  the  spirit  which  determined  the 
form  of  this  work  four  hundred  years  ago  is  the  same  that 
makes  it  possible  for  a  wit  to  describe  an  English  house  as 
"a  place  with  a  small  gate  marked  'Tradesmen's  Entrance.'" 
The  gates  of  the  Lady  Chapel  might  almost  be  an  exalted 
'  tradesmen's  entrance.' 


159 


CHAPTER  X:  Life,  and  the  Tombs 

THE  Abbey  is  a  House  of  Death,  and  a  Place  of 
Tombs.  Kings  built  it  for  a  mausoleum ;  and  their 
bodies  were  crowded  into  it  so  long  as  six  feet  of 
suitable  space  could  anywhere  be  found  to  contain  them.  The 
vaults  are  literally  crammed  with  royal  bones,  and  not  royal 
ones  alone ;  for  outside  that  central  circle  grew  another,  of 
courtiers,  statesmen,  and  ecclesiastics :  of  poets,  actors,  and 
scientists :  of  musicians,  explorers,  great  nobles,  crusaders, 
and  distinguished  foreigners. 

The  circle  widened,  radiating  from  the  midmost  point 
where  stands  the  Shrine  of  the  Confessor  within  his  ring  of 
Plantagenets.  Henry  V  contrived  with  difficulty,  and  through 
the  ingenuity  and  skill  of  Master  Thomas  Mapilton,  King's 
Mason,  to  make  room  for  himself  in  that  Holy  Place ;  and 
Henry  VH  had  then  perforce  to  build  another  chapel.  And 
though  his  work  was  dedicated  in  very  sincere  piety  to  "our 
Lady  Saincte  Mary,"  it  too  was  but  another  mausoleum,  larger, 
richer,  and  more  ornate  than  the  Chapel  of  the  Kings.  Built 
by  the  first  Tudor  monarch,  and  fitting  monument  to  him  and 
his  men  who  made  it,  the  Lady  Chapel  gathered  to  itself  with 
the  reaping  years  a  strange  mixed  harvest  of  proud  Tudor 
and  passionate  Stuart  and  placid  Hanoverian.  But  the  circle 
spread  wider  still,  through  the  aisles  of  the  Lady  Chapel, 
through  the  chapels  of  the  apse,  into  the  Abbey  itself,  until, 
if  the  mind  dwell  on  that  aspect  alone,  the  whole  fabric  seems 
like  nothing  but  a  vast  charnel  house,  piled  high  with  the  spoils 
of  death  through  many  centuries.  Did  not  Addison  say,  in 
1 60 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

describing  a  visit  to  the  Abbey :  "  Upon  my  going  into  the 
church,  I  entertained  myself  with  the  digging  of  a  grave ;  and 
saw  in  every  shovelful  of  it  that  was  thrown  up,  the  fragment 
of  a  bone  or  skull  intermixed  with  a  kind  of  fresh  mouldering 
earth,  that  some  time  or  other  had  a  place  in  the  composition  of  a 
human  body."  And  in  the  two  centuries  which  have  passed  since 
then,  the  silent  unseen  multitude  has  grown  much  larger  still. 

There  are  the  facts,  pretty  exactly  stated ;  and  measured 
by  them,  that  is  the  truth  about  the  Abbey — a  House  of  Death. 
It  is,  indeed,  so  obvious  and  so  generally  accepted  that  one  is 
almost  ashamed  to  repeat  it.  Historians  have  recorded  it  I 
do  not  know  how  many  times.  Essayists  have  mused  mourn- 
fully over  it.  Poets  have  philosophized  about  it ;  and  countless 
thousands  of  average  English  folk  have  followed  this  dis- 
tinguished lead  in  accepting  the  old  lie  unchallenged.  But 
now  it  is  time  to  fling  down  the  glove,  for  a  lie  it  is.  The  facts 
are  as  false  as  only  facts  can  be ;  and  the  truth  thus  expressed 
has  the  peculiar  poison  of  all  half-truth. 

The  Abbey  is  not  a  place  of  Death,  but  of  abounding 
Life:  it  is  a  centre  and  source  of  vitality.  Rooted  in  a  past 
immensely  far,  its  age  is  as  young  as  the  dawn,  and  it  points 
to  a  future  incalculably  remote.  Established  in  the  life  of  our 
race,  and  built  of  the  very  substance  of  the  nation's  spirit,  it 
partakes  therein  of  eternity.  So  that  could  we  but  shake  off 
the  hypnotism  of  the  historian,  and  rubbing  the  sleep  from  our 
eyes,  walk  round  the  Abbey  with  awakened  vision,  we  should 
cry  out,  not  in  sadness  at  human  fate,  but  in  triumph  of  the 
human  spirit :  There  is  no  death  ! 

L  i6i 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Now  I  know  all  the  charges  which  can  be  levelled  at  that 
statement,  for  they  poke  up  their  ugly  heads  whichever  way 
one  looks.  First :  that  it  is  but  an  assertion  and  not  an 
argument.  Second :  that  it  is  too  challenging  and  extreme. 
Third :  that  no  reasons  are  adduced.  Fourth :  that  even  if 
proofs  were  forthcoming  and  were  conclusive,  they  would  still 
only  present  one  aspect  of  the  truth  ;  and  Fifth  :  that  therefore, 
etc.,  etc.,  etc.  Certainly  one  ought  to  be  chastened,  if  not 
dismayed,  by  such  a  trenchant  array;  and  perhaps  it  is  a  sign 
of  some  ineradicable  vice  that  one  is  neither  chastened  nor 
dismayed,  but  laughs  instead  at  all  these  solemn  good  people — 
the  pedant  who  cannot  see  the  wood  for  the  trees  and  therefore 
has  no  notion  that  Spring  is  rioting  up  there  in  a  flame  of 
green  :  the  logician,  so  tightly  wound  in  his  shroud  of  logic 
that  he  can  no  longer  feci  essential  truth  ;  and  the  student  of 
history,  bloodless  from  his  diet  of  stone-cold  fact,  whom 
no  living  impulse  now  can  move. 

Yet  though  one  laughs  a  little,  and  would  even  be 
prepared  to  face  the  last  worst  charge  of  having  attempted  to 
refute  one  half-truth  by  another,  that  is  because  one  sees  this 
reprehensible  dogma  as  at  the  lowest  the  better  of  two 
alternatives;  and  at  the  highest  a  thing  of  such  vitality  and 
inspiration  that  it  has  within  itself  force  enough  to  comprehend, 
to  subdue  and  finally  to  supersede  its  limp  and  lifeless  partner. 
But  indeed  the  assertion  that  the  Abbey  is  a  place  of  Life  is  no 
mere  dogma :  it  can  be  proved.  Even  the  delighted  cry  of 
realization  here,  There  is  no  death  I  is  almost  pedantically 
accurate ;  for  the  only  death  in  the  Abbey  is  of  that  which  never 
162 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

had  life,  that  is  to  say,  bad  art,  and  the  buried  bodies  of  men 
who  had  no  souls,  or  none  to  speak  of.  But  they,  the  soulless 
men,  are  splendidly  outnumbered  :  their  poor  dust  is  such  a 
small  thing  comparatively  that  it  troubles  us  not  at  all.  As  to 
the  bad  art,  that  is  another  and  a  graver  matter ;  but  the  point 
for  the  moment  is  that  neither  ever  possessed  that  life  of  the 
spirit  which  makes  of  the  Abbey  such  a  triumphant  and  vital 
thing ;  and  the  fact  that  they  are  dead  cannot  therefore  hurt  that 
spirit. 

But  what,  then,  is  this  life  of  the  spirit  that  dwells  in  the 
Abbey?  Or  if  it  is  a  thing  too  subtle  to  define,  what  at  least 
are  its  manifestations?  Well,  it  is,  in  a  broad  and  general 
sense,  by  no  means  too  subtle  to  define ;  for  it  is  simply,  in  one 
word,  the  nation's  soul.  Now  I  am  aware  that  plenty  of  people 
have  said  that,  or  something  like  it,  before.  Nothing,  I  suppose, 
is  quite  so  trite,  or  so  frequently  reiterated  about  the  Abbey,  as 
the  fact  that  it  is  a  'national  institution.'  But  there  precisely, 
in  that  colourless  word  '  institution,'  lies  a  world  of  difference. 
It  is  not,  to  begin  with,  in  the  same  universe  with  the  word 
soul;  and  even  if  it  were  ever  so  vivid  and  potent,  the 
hackneyed  wear  and  tear  of  it  would  long  ago  have  reduced  it  to 
a  drab  and  threadbare  rag.  But,  with  its  suggestion  of  some- 
thing formal,  rigid,  and  decrepit,  the  word  is  neither  vivid  nor 
potent.  It  is  cold  and  faint,  a  mere  grey  shadow  that  can 
reflect  no  ray  of  the  sun-clear  truth  that  the  Abbey  is  the 
incarnate  spirit  of  our  race :  that  it  is  splendidly  alive, 
magnificent  in  spite  of  many  defects,  and,  for  all  its  eccen- 
tricities, adorable. 

163 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

The  spirit  of  England  is  made  visible  here,  having  got 
itself  embodied  in  concrete  form  as  souls  must,  persisting 
marvellously  through  change  as  souls  do,  rooted  in  the  past 
and  seed  for  the  future,  as  souls  are.  I  am  not  speaking  now 
of  that  specific  sense  in  which  the  Abbey,  through  its  religious 
function,  may  be  said  to  represent  the  spiritual  life  of  England. 
Those  who  are  concerned  to  do  so  will  no  doubt  take  that  for 
granted.  But  the  word  '  spirit '  is  surely  a  bigger  thing,  and 
includes  every  noble  activity  of  the  human  mind,  with  religion 
as  one  of  them.  In  that  greater  sense  the  Abbey  is  the  nation 
with  a  completeness  which  is,  in  sum,  an  inspiration ;  but 
which  has  admittedly  certain  aspects  that  are  ironical,  and  even 
humiliating.  It  reveals  us  so  very  startingly  to  ourselves.  On 
the  subject  of  what  I  have  called  bad  art,  for  instance :  that  is 
to  say,  pseudo-art  which  never  had  the  breath  of  life  in  it.  I 
wonder  what  other  race  would  have  ploughed  into  the  lovely 
wall-arcades  made  by  the  thirteenth-century  men  ?  Or  who, 
having  brought  themselves  to  such  an  act,  would  have  dared 
to  plaster  (that  is  the  right  word)  under  the  exquisite  trefoils 
memorials  that  are,  at  their  least  offensive,  mere  lumps  of 
ugliness ;  and  at  their  worst,  vulgar  and  mendacious  as  well  ? 
Queer  folk,  hacking  and  hewing  at  a  priceless  treasure :  blind 
to  beauty,  yet  so  intent  on  improving  the  perfect  I  Are  there 
some  who  refuse  to  recognize  in  this  aesthetic  perversity  a 
genuine  feature  of  national  life?  Then  alas  for  them,  that 
they  cannot  laugh  at  themselves  ;  for  the  defect  is  characteristic 
to  the  verge  of  comicality.  And  in  the  grand  total  of  all  that 
the  Abbey  is  and  means  the  flaw  is  only  too  apt  to  take  on  an 
164 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

attraction  like  the  endearing  fault  of  a  friend.  So  that  one 
jeers  at  it,  and  rails  at  it,  but  loves  it  all  the  more. 

Or,  to  take  another  feature  of  the  Abbey  in  which  the 
national  spirit  lives  with  rather  ironic  vivacity — I  mean  the 
ubiquitous  presence  of  what  may  be  called  variously  the 
political,  the  practical,  or  the  secular  element  at  this  the  heart 
of  our  religion.  Almost  omnipresent  it  is,  from  the  statues 
of  the  statesmen  that  guard  the  north  transept,  to  the  policeman 
who  jingles  the  keys  of  the  Chapter  House.  Almost  co-eval 
it  is,  too,  whether  one  thinks  of  it  as  summoned  to  existence 
here  by  the  resounding  voice  of  Simon  de  Montfort  calling 
the  first  Parliament,  or  whether  one  remembers  Hugolin, 
Chamberlain  and  Treasurer  to  the  Confessor,  whose  bones 
rest,  equally  with  those  of  the  first  great  founder,  within  the 
Abbey.  St  Edward  in  the  shrine,  and  Hugolin  lying  in  the 
treasure-house — are  they  not,  for  English  life  and  character, 
the  very  complement  of  one  another  ?  While  Simon  de 
Montfort  and  Henry — is  their  struggle  not  a  symbol  of  the 
English  political  genius  eternally  at  war  with  enthusiasm 
and  exuberance?  Thus  Henry  HI,  artist,  ddvot,  and  builder 
of  churches,  stands  matched,  or  rather  more  than  matched,  by 
the  stern  Earl  Simon,  because  Simon  represented  in  his  person 
that  much  more  English  thing  than  a  love  of  Art,  namely,  a 
passion  for  liberty.  From  which  seed  the  Parliament  of  the 
nation  grew  up  in  the  Chapter  House  of  the  Abbey. 

So  that  if  there  be,  as  one  sees  an  occasional  sign  that 
there  still  are,  persons  who  resent  the  presence  of  this  political 
element  as  an  intrusion  into  the  region  of  religion,  one  can  at 

165 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

least  understand  their  attitude.  It  would  have  been  so  much 
more  fitting,  from  the  abstract  and  logical  standpoint,  that 
the  sacred  purpose  of  the  building  should  have  been  respected 
absolutely;  just  as  it  would  have  been  so  much  more 
harmonious,  from  the  aesthetic  standpoint,  that  the  perfect 
medieval  work  should  never  have  been  defaced  by  modern 
monstrosities.  Logic  and  an  aesthetic  sense  have  ruled  far 
otherwise  in,  let  us  say,  Notre-Dame  de  Paris,  sending  great 
French  laymen  to  lie  in  the  Pantheon,  and  refusing  to  destroy 
the  lovely  lines  of  the  interior  with  a  medley  of  alien  forms. 
Notre  Dame,  for  that  reason,  is  so  much  the  more  P'rench  ; 
but  is  not  Westminster,  for  the  contrary  reason,  so  much  the 
more  English?  We  are  forced  to  recognize  the  inharmony 
and  incongruity  that  deface  the  Abbey  as  part  of  ourselves. 
Sometimes  they  are  ludicrous,  and  sometimes  infuriating :  but 
whether  they  stir  to  laughter  or  wrath,  the  fact  that  we  are 
stirred  is  a  sign  of  their  force.  They  are  of  our  life,  radical 
and  one  supposes  inalterable.  The  nation's  spirit  lives  in 
them,  warningly  one  may  believe,  but  not  less  vitally  than 
in  the  nobler  things  for  which  the  Abbey  stands. 

Of  those  nobler  things,  what  can  be  said  ?  If  one  had  a 
golden  pen  and  it  was  winged  with  fire,  much  might  be  said 
of  the  thousand  years  or  so  of  the  life  of  our  past  that  lives 
within  these  walls  ;  and  of  those  potential  other  thousands  of 
the  future.  But  both  past  and  future  are  contained  within  this 
immediate  now.  All  are  gathered  up  into  that  spirit  which 
the  Abbey  breathes  at  this  moment  of  the  greatest  things  of 
a  great  nation's  life.  Heroism  and  loyalty,  romance  and  piety, 
i66 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

proud  freedom  and  patient  industry  and  a  steadfast  indomitable 
temper,  these  are  by  no  means  all  the  voices  with  which  it 
summons  the  listener  to  awake  and  enter  into  his  heritage. 
Most  significant  of  the  voices  is  one  which  has  not  their 
clarion  call,  but  which  steals  sweetly  into  the  mind  and  remains 
there  when  the  others  have  died  down.  Quiet  and  clear,  the 
note  of  Reconciliation  flows  through  the  keener  sounds  as  a 
perpetual  soft  undertone,  threading  them  all  together  and 
giving  them  their  value.  And  if  one  listens  long  enough,  its 
music  will  predominate.  One  will  hear  in  it  the  reconciliation 
of  Church  and  State,  of  King  and  People,  of  Victor  and 
Vanquished :  the  reconciliation  of  many  foreign  strains  in  our 
actual  breed,  of  the  art  of  many  races  in  the  structure  of  the 
building,  of  diverse  creeds,  policies,  and  systems  of  thought, 
in  the  men  whose  bones  lie  here. 

Of  the  vivid  national  life  for  which  the  Abbey  stands, 
this  Reconciling  Spirit  is  its  most  native  element,  and  will 
probably  be  its  most  enduring  force.  "That  ye  might  have 
life,  and  have  it  more  abundantly" — I  seem  to  remember  that 
this  was  the  purpose  for  which  the  Humble  One,  in  whose 
honour  this  church  was  ultimately  built,  agonized  and  died. 
That,  then,  is  the  sacred  original  fire  of  the  Abbey  spirit. 
But  a  nation  has  agonized  on  this  spot  for  nearly  a  thousand 
years — agonized  in  that  older  sense  of  noble  and  heroic 
struggle.  Can  we  not  therefore  hear  its  living  voice,  in  this 
place  which  the  deaf  and  the  blind  call  a  place  of  death,  it 
also  sweetly  declaring  the  object  of  the  long  fight — that  ye 
might  have  life,  and  have  it  more  abundantly '>     Every  stone 

167 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

rings  with  it :  every  gracious  line  and  even  every  comical  bit  of 
ugliness  sings  of  that  English  life  thus  vicariously  bequeathed  : 
not  an  unblemished  thing,  and  in  certain  aspects  rather 
ridiculous,  but  trying  to  aim  straight  at  something  which  shall 
approach  to  high  courage  and  honesty,  freedom  and  justice 
and  reconciling  mercy. 

Now  many  of  the  tombs,  which  should,  according  to  the 
historians,  be  the  deadest  of  all  dead  things,  have  a  special 
power  to  convey  this  sense  of  life.  The  most  beautiful  are  of 
course  the  most  vital ;  but  there  are  others  which  teem  with 
significance.  It  does  not  even  require  a  visible  monument, 
sometimes,  to  come  home  to  us  with  force,  as  for  example 
when  we  stand  in  the  Chapel  of  St  Benedict  and  reflect  on  him, 
the  founder  of  the  Benedictine  Order.  There  is  no  tomb  for 
him,  of  course,  in  our  cold  northern  island ;  yet  but  for  him 
the  Abbey  would  not  have  existed,  and  the  whole  of  Western 
civilization  would  have  been  a  different  thing.  Edward  III  in 
1355  brought  here  from  France  the  precious  relic  of  the  saint's 
head  ;  and  the  Abbey  long  treasured  it  as  one  of  its  holiest 
possessions. 

Or  turning  to  quite  another  mood  of  this  protean  life,  one 
can  step  into  St  Michael's  Chapel,  and,  still  without  the  aid  of 
any  monument,  realize  that  there  was  buried  "  Sir  William 
Trussel,  Kt.,  Speaker  to  the  House  of  Commons  at  the 
deposing  of  King  Edward  II."  ^  A  sternly  echoing  voice,  this, 
declaring  to  a  decadent  King  the  people's  will  that  he  should 
abdicate.     A  very  English  voice,  too,  as  Edward  II  knew  well, 

^  Stow.     Ed.  Strype. 
168 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

and  which  may  still  be  recognized,  since  it  is  by  no  means 
silenced  yet.  Thus,  too,  from  the  grave  of  Wilberforce  and 
the  statue  of  Buxton  in  the  north  choir  aisle,  figures  hardly 
enhaloed  yet  in  memory  because  they  are  not  far  enough  away 
in  time ;  and  who  dwell  rather  quaintly  in  the  mind  because 
our  funny  old  grandfathers  used  to  tell  of  how  they  fought 
the  slave  trade — from  that  spot  rings  the  crusading  spirit  of 
England  that  is  older  than  the  Crusades  and  young  as  this 
morning. 

So  one  might  go  on,  almost  indefinitely ;  and  indeed  it  is 
a  subject  to  return  to.  But  since  our  theme  is  for  the  moment 
tombs,  it  will  be  better  to  concentrate  on  a  group  of  two  or 
three  which  pre-eminently  embody  the  English  spirit.  One 
casts  about  for  a  choice,  therefore ;  and  the  first  thing  to  strike 
us  is  how  rich  a  field  we  have  to  select  from.  Also,  how  little, 
on  the  whole,  the  tombs  have  suffered.  People  who  know  most 
about  the  national  burying-places  of  other  races  say  that  there 
is  none  like  Westminster  for  comprehensiveness  and  good 
preservation.  One's  own  smaller  experience  supports,  so  far 
as  it  goes,  that  assertion.  One  tries  to  recall,  at  Paris,  or 
Potsdam,  or  Weimar :  at  Rome,  or  even  at  Florence,  another 
such  assembly ;  but  one  fails  to  remember  anything  comparable 
to  it.  Its  catholicity  is  a  thing  peculiar  to  England ;  and  the 
relatively  good  condition  of  the  tombs  is,  I  like  to  think  (and 
this  despite  the  enormities  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  Dissolution), 
of  a  piece  with  that 'English  temper  which  is  expressed  in  an 
undying  phrase  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne :  "  I  should  cut  off  my 
arme,  rather  than  violate  a  church  window." 

169 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

However,  the  choice  is  much  less  embarrassing  if  we 
postulate  beauty  as  well  as  interest  and  significance.  Make 
the  demand  on  aesthetic  grounds  and  the  multitude  dwindles 
inevitably  to  a  convenient  number.  Go  a  step  farther,  and 
stipulate  for  a  high  perfection  which  shall  include  supreme 
greatness  in  the  subject  and  supreme  beauty  in  the  monument, 
and  the  manageable  number  recedes  almost  to  vanishing  point. 
By  such  an  elimination,  indeed,  only  one  might  remain,  whose 
greatness  and  beauty  are  matched  by  an  equally  exquisite  tomb  ; 
and  that  is  the  Lady  Margaret  Beaufort.  There  are  tombs 
more  magnificent  than  hers  (as,  for  example,  that  of  her  son 
Henry  VH)  which  contain  ashes  so  much  less  fine.  And  there 
are  meaner  monuments  that  enclose  remains  equally  illustrious. 
But  in  her  monument  the  artist  wrought  beauty  to  enshrine 
beauty,  and  made  a  perfect  work. 

But  we  are,  of  course,  making  an  almost  impossible 
demand ;  and  the  fact  that  it  happens  to  be  fulfilled  in  the 
Lady  Margaret's  tomb  is  of  the  nature  of  a  miracle.  Yet  there 
are  other  tombs  of  extraordinary  beauty  and  interest.  There 
is,  for  example,  a  group  of  three  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Kings 
which  possesses  intensely  the  vital  attraction  of  which  one  is 
thinking:  I  mean  the  tombs  of  Henry  HI,  Eleanor  of  Castile, 
and  Edward  L  These  speak  of  vivid  English  life ;  yet, 
characteristically,  two  of  the  royal  persons  are  not  of  English 
birth.  But  consider  the  tombs.  Two  of  them  beautiful,  and 
one  ugly,  they  do  not  therefore  make  a  harmonious  group 
aesthetically  ;  so  that  they  cannot  be  thought  of  as  the  other 
incomparable  three,  the  lovely  Gothic  tombs  of  Edmund 
170 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

Crouchback,  his  wife  Aveline,  and  Aymer  de  Valence,  in  the 
presbytery.  For  that  reason,  the  tendency  always  is  to 
eliminate  the  ugly  tomb  from  this  group  and  to  think  and 
speak  of  only  the  beautiful  two,  Henry  III  and  Eleanor, 
as  if  they  formed  an  isolated  and  unapproachable  pair.  Well, 
so  they  do,  from  the  point  of  view  of  art.  Professor  Lethaby 
says,  speaking  of  the  bronze  effigies  of  Henry  and  Eleanor, 
that  they  are  the  most  beautiful  Gothic  sculptures  in  England  ; 
and  of  that  of  Eleanor  in  particular,  that  it  is  probably 
unmatched  in  Europe,  from  the  threefold  cause  that  its  subject 
is  a  beautiful  queen,  its  date  was  the  apogee  of  Gothic  art,  and 
that  it  is  wrought  in  the  fine  and  practically  imperishable 
material  of  gilt  bronze.  As  sheer  beauty,  these  two  tombs 
sing  together  in  happy  unison,  and  cannot  be  linked  with  any 
other  without  in  some  degree  marring  the  clear  harmony  of 
their  song.  But  the  Abbey's  voice  of  life  is  not  a  simple 
harmony.  It  is  a  deeper,  richer,  and  more  complex  music ;  and 
listening  to  its  fuller  tones,  the  note  of  that  other  ugly  tomb 
strikes  in,  at  first  as  a  strange  and  almost  conflicting  theme, 
but  recurring,  insistent,  and  finally  dominating  the  whole.  One 
realizes  then  that  it,  and  not  they — with  all  it  means  of 
adventurous  courage,  of  dogged  aim,  of  romantic  religion  and 
devout  love,  of  simplicity  almost  crude  and  modesty  almost 
absurd — it  is  the  fundamental  thing,  the  deep  bass  of  that 
music  of  the  national  spirit. 

The  tombs  of  Henry  III  and  Eleanor,  lovely  as  they  are, 
would  not  be  there  at  all  had  it  not  been  for  the  filial  piety  and 
marital  tenderness  of  Edward  I.     Edward  honoured  his  father 

171 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

with  much  money  and  care  lavished  on  his  monument.  His 
adoration  of  his  wife  found  expression  in  infinite  thought  and 
limitless  expenditure  on  her  many  memorials.  But  he  himself 
lies  in  that  mere  stone  chest,  entirely  unadorned.  You  may 
blame  the  meanness  of  his  tomb  to  the  unworthiness  of  his  son, 
if  so  it  please  you :  it  is  agreed  at  any  rate  that  the  son  was 
completely  worthless.  But  kings,  as  well  as  bishops,  have  been 
known  to  order  their  tombs  before  their  death.  One  remembers 
the  concern  of  Henry  V  about  the  building  of  his  chantry  ;  and 
the  still  more  explicit  directions  of  Henry  VH  for  his  magni- 
ficent monument,  with  financial  provision  made  for  it  by  the 
parsimonious  King.  But  the  generous  Edward,  in  dying,  had 
far  other  injunctions  for  his  heir.  There  is  native  force  and 
simplicity  in  them,  but  there  is  nothing  about  tombs.  There  is 
the  soldier,  the  romantic,  and  the  statesman  in  them,  but 
nothing  of  the  egotist.  Smitten  with  illness  at  Carlisle  as  he 
was  starting  another  expedition  against  the  Scots,  he  sent  for 
his  son  and  laid  on  him  three  commands.  They  are  deeply 
characteristic,  and  not  of  this  King  only,  but  of  the  spirit  of  our 
race.  "  You  shall  carry  my  bones  before  you  through  Scotland 
until  you  have  subdued  it ;  you  shall  send  my  heart  to  the  Holy 
Land  ;  and  you  shall  never  recall  Piers  Gaveston."  War,  and 
Religion,  and  the  State :  such  great  simplicities  occupied  his 
last  moments,  as  they  had  engaged  all  his  manhood  and  his 
royalty.  Hence,  this  fighter  for  impossible  causes — for  the 
tomb  of  Christ,  and  to  conquer  the  unconquerable  Scots :  this 
good  statesman  whose  failing  breath  laid  a  political  charge  upon 
his  heir:  this  visionary  sending  his  heart  to  rest  where  its 
172 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

lodestar  had  been  in  life — he  lies  at  Westminster  between  five 
plain  slabs  of  Purbeck  marble.  There  is  no  effigy:  and  there 
is  no  ornament  of  any  kind.  Only  an  inscription  of  doubtful 
origin,  but  quoted  by  Sandford,  and  therefore  existing  when  he 
wrote   in   the   middle  of  the  seventeenth   century :    Edvvardus 

PRIMUS     SCOTORUM     MALLEUS     HIC    EST     I308    PACTUM     SERVA. 

"  Hammer  of  the  Scots  "  indeed !  It  is  clear  that  the  great 
King  had  no  voice  in  that  boast.  It  was  probably  invented 
long  after  he  was  buried.  But  "  Keep  the  Pact "  comes  nearer 
both  to  him  and  to  the  deeper  things  of  the  nation's  spirit  for 
which  the  Abbey  stands. 

To  Edward,  then,  we  owe  the  other  two  tombs ;  and  now 
it  is  possible  to  look  at  them  with  a  vision  sharpened  by  the 
thought  of  his  devotion  and  generosity.  Henry  III  died  in 
1272,  while  Edward  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  away  in  the  Holy 
Land.  They  buried  him  temporarily  in  the  grave  of  Edward 
the  Confessor  before  the  high  altar,  from  which  he  had 
translated  the  Confessor's  remains  into  the  new  golden  shrine. 
There  he  lay  for  more  than  ten  years.  But  in  the  meantime 
Edward  I  had  gathered  in  his  wanderings  material  with  which 
to  make  a  splendid  tomb  for  his  father.  He  brought  them 
back  with  him — porphyry,  marble,  and  glass  and  gold  tesserae. 
He  seems  to  have  had  in  mind  the  rich  mosaic  basement  of 
the  shrine  which  Henry  III  had  built  for  the  Confessor;  and 
to  have  determined  that  his  father  should  have  no  less  honour 
than  that.  Hence  the  tomb  of  Henry  III  very  much  resembles 
the  Confessor's  tomb,  as  well  in  its  classical  design  as  in  the 
nature  of  its  decoration. 

173 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Gough  says,  and  that  old  antiquary  ought  to  know,  that 
this  tomb  is  the  most  magnificent  and  costly  monument  of  its 
century.  It  stands  on  the  north  side  of  the  Chapel  of  the 
Kings,  in  the  place  of  honour  to  the  right  of  the  Confessor. 
One  side,  therefore,  fronts  the  shrine,  and  the  other  side  looks 
down  into  the  ambulatory.  It  is  a  double  tomb,  raised  on 
three  steps.  Its  lower  stage,  on  the  chapel  side,  contains  three 
recesses,  the  middle  one  shaped  like  a  classical  portal,  with 
pilasters  and  pediment.  They  were  probably  used  for  the  safe 
keeping  of  relics ;  and  they  are  lined  with  the  same  mosaic  that 
once  covered  the  whole  of  this  lower  stage  of  the  tomb.  Much 
of  the  mosaic  is  still  left  on  the  side  of  the  tomb  which  fronts 
the  ambulatory  where,  secure  from  the  touch  of  innumerable 
pilgrims,  it  remains  in  good  preservation.  It  may  be  easily 
seen  from  the  ambulatory,  or  by  standing  at  the  top  of  the  steps 
that  lead  up  to  that  side  of  the  chapel.  It  is  still  fresh  and 
gay  enough  to  give  an  idea  of  the  original  brilliance  of  this 
Cosmati  work,  with  its  bright  colour  and  shining  gold  and 
glass  tesserse.  One  likes  to  think  of  this  other  Roman  artist 
working  at  Edward's  bidding  on  Henry's  tomb,  as  Peter  of 
Rome  had  wrought  the  basement  of  the  Confessor's  tomb  at 
Henry's  bidding.  The  later  artist  could  not  have  been, 
presumably,  one  of  the  Cosmati  themselves,  for  that  name 
would  have  left  a  record  somewhere  in  the  Abbey  archives. 
There  is,  however,  an  echo  of  the  name  of  one  of  their  school, 
one  Cavallini ;  and  it  is  just  possible  that  the  artist  may  have 
been  he ;  but  whoever  he  was,  his  work  adds  another  note  to  the 
Abbey's  harmony,  already  enriched  from  many  foreign  sources. 

174 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

The  tomb  proper  rises  in  a  second  stage  above  the  base. 
Its  sides  and  ends  contain  panels  of  highly  polished  porphyry — 
that  which  Edward  I  brought  back  from  his  travels — framed  in 
mosaic.  Two  writhing  pillars  stand  at  each  corner,  repeating 
the  idea  of  the  twisted  pillars  on  the  shrine  ;  and  upon  the 
summit  rests  the  table  of  copper-gilt  on  which  the  King's  effigy 
lies.  Now  the  efifigy  was  for  many  years  assumed  to  be  also 
of  Italian  workmanship.  It  was  known  that  an  artist  named 
Torel  had  been  employed  by  Edward  I  to  make  the  lovely 
figures  of  his  Queen  for  her  three  tombs.  There  is  a  record  of 
the  exact  amount  that  he  received  for  the  three — ;^ii3  6s.  8d., 
the  equivalent  of  about  ;^i7oo  in  money  values  before  the 
Great  War  sent  them  still  higher.  And  it  was  clear,  apart  from 
the  documents,  which,  however,  are  convincing,  that  the  effigy 
of  Henry  III  was  from  the  same  hand.  There  are  resem- 
blances of  manner  and  technique  that  are  unmistakable.  The 
two  figures  are  both  idealized  to  some  extent ;  and  the  idealiza- 
tion is  in  the  same  degree  and  in  the  same  manner.  The  curve 
of  the  flowing  hair,  the  straight  line  of  the  lower  eyelid,  the 
modelling  of  the  mouth,  all  appear  to  follow  a  convention  ;  and 
although  that  fact  probably  does  not  refute  the  belief  that  the 
effigies  were  studied  from  their  originals,  it  strongly  suggests 
that  the  author  of  the  two  works  was  the  same  person.  That 
person,  as  I  have  said,  was  until  comparatively  recent  times 
called  an  Italian.  Perhaps  it  was  a  simple  case  of  suggestion, 
from  the  fact  that  the  mosaics  of  Henry's  tomb  are  unquestion- 
able Italian  work.  Perhaps  the  look  of  the  word  Torel 
disguised  its  English  form  of  Turrell.     But  investigation  has 

175 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

yielded  the  truth  of  the  matter,  which  W.  Burges  and  others 
declare  to  be  that  the  artist  indubitably  was  William  Torel, 
goldsmith  and  citizen  of  London.  We  learn  that  the  name 
"has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  Italian  family  of  Torelli. 
The  name  of  Torel  occurs  in  documents  from  the  time  of  the 
Confessor  down  to  the  said  William." 

The  two  effigies,  which  one  ought  to  remember  are 
probably  the  first  that  were  ever  cast  in  this  country,  are  of  a 
grave,  noble,  yet  delicate  beauty.  One  realizes  as  much  as  that 
in  the  difficult  and  incomplete  view  one  gets  of  them  from  the 
chapel.  Seen  even  so  imperfectly,  the  profile  lines  are  exquisite. 
But  to  study  them,  as  it  is  possible  to  do,  from  drawings  and 
engravings,  is  to  acknowledge  that  none  of  the  high  praises  that 
have  been  lavished  on  them  is  exaggerated.  I  said  it  was 
possible  to  study  them  in  this  way  ;  but  it  is  far  from  an  easy 
thing  to  do  for  the  majority  of  folk.  In  the  great  tomes  of 
Cough's  Sepulchral  Monuments  in  Great  Britain  are  certain 
fine  engravings  of  Westminster  tombs  which  have  an  ex- 
traordinary interest.  They  are  signed  Basire  Del.  et  Sculp., 
and  one  would  suppose  them  therefore  to  have  been  drawn  and 
engraved  by  that  Basire  who  was  engraver,  in  the  third  quarter 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  to  the  Society  of  Antiquaries.  But 
no,  their  origin  is  much  more  illustrious.  You  have  to  think  of 
a  young  man  named  William  Blake,  apprentice  to  this  Basire, 
and  sent  into  the  Abbey  to  draw  tombs,  partly  to  release  him 
from  the  wrangling  of  fellow-apprentices.  Dreamer  of  dreams 
and  seer  of  visions,  the  artist-poet  was  to  those  young  cubs 
quite  an  alien ;  but  shut  up  in  the  Abbey,  climbing  up  on  to  the 
176 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

tombs  the  better  to  see  them,  and  perceiving  (he  was  the  first  to 
do  it)  the  lovely  spirit  of  Gothic  beauty,  he  was  happily  in  his 
own  place.  From  Gilchrist's  life  of  Blake  we  learn  that  he  was 
occupied  by  his  master  for  several  years,  from  1773,  in  thus 
drawing  and  helping  to  engrave  the  monuments  of  the  Abbey. 
Queen  Philippa  is  identified  as  his  work ;  but  there  are  others 
which  one  judges  to  be  from  the  same  hand,  and  of  those  are 
Henry  III  and  Eleanor,  both  poetical  in  their  majesty.  The 
original  copper-plates  thus  engraved  by  Blake  are  in  the 
Bodleian  Library,  where  they  form  a  part  of  the  collection 
bequeathed  by  Richard  Gough's  will  in  1799.  As  one  turns 
over  the  pages  of  Gough  in  the  Bodleian  or  the  British 
Museum,  one  cannot  help  regretting  that  these  lovely  drawings 
are  not  more  accessible.  With  their  value  as  art,  the  im- 
portance of  their  subject,  and  the  interest  of  their  authorship, 
they  are  entirely  delightful.  If  they  could  be  reproduced  well 
and  sold  cheaply,  English  folk  might  begin  to  understand 
what  a  treasure-house  their  Abbey  is. 

The  tomb  of  Eleanor  is  of  a  different  kind  of  beauty  from 
that  of  Henry  III;  and  its  gracious  Gothic  we  owe  to  Master 
Richard  Crundale,  King's  Mason.  Its  mouldings  are  delicate, 
and  the  six  trefoiled  arches  on  the  north  side  have  their  sharply 
pointed  pediments  edged  with  foliage.  Under  the  arches  hang 
three  coats  of  arms,  twice  repeated.  They  are  the  arms  of 
England,  Castile,  and  Leon,  and  are  suspended  from  branches 
of  oak  and  vine.  Below,  on  the  basement  of  the  tomb,  are  faint 
remains  of  what  must  have  been  a  lovely  painting.  Its  subject 
has  been  made  out  as  a  knight  kneeling  in  prayer  before  the 

M  177 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Virgin  and  Child  ;  and  one  cannot  but  believe  that  it  was  meant 
to  represent  Edward  praying  for  the  soul  of  Eleanor. 

The  painting,  however,  has  all  but  vanished  ;  but  more 
enduring,  and  certainly  not  less  beautiful  than  any  part  of  the 
whole  fine  monument,  is  the  iron  grille,  made  by  Thomas 
Leighton,  blacksmith  of  Leighton  Buzzard.  This  work  of 
perfect  art  is,  of  course,  a  mere  grating  to  keep  out  thieves. 
Yet  the  medieval  passion  for  beauty  has  bent  and  twisted 
and  welded  and  stamped  the  stubborn  iron  into  all  manner 
of  graceful  shapes  of  curving  stalks  and  leaves. 

Gough  describes  the  Eleanor  effigy  as  "a  delicate  figure  of 
a  beautiful  lady."  Stothard  speaks  of  its  regular  features  and 
"  an  air  of  commanding  beauty  "  ;  and  W.  Burges,  discussing 
whether  or  not  the  figure  was  a  portrait  study,  declares  that 
it  is  a  "valuable  example  of  the  beau  ideal  of  the  thirteenth 
century."  Professor  Lethaby,  on  the  other  hand,  thinks  that 
it  was  certainly  studied  from  the  life ;  and  from  other  sources 
one  learns  that  the  artists  of  the  period  used  to  take  the 
lovely  Queen  for  their  model  of  the  Virgin.  Making  all 
allowances  for  the  Eleanor  legend,  and  accepting  the  denial  of 
the  story  that  she  once  saved  Edward's  life  by  sucking  the 
poison  from  his  wound,  there  remains  enough  fact  about  her 
to  present  a  great  woman,  as  well  as  a  great  and  beautiful 
Queen.  She  came  from  a  proud  race ;  and  a  Princess  of 
Castile  was  no  unworthy  mate  for  a  Prince  of  Wales.  Yet 
she  seems  to  have  had  a  sweet  graciousness  of  disposition. 
One  is  apt  to  read  lightly  the  words  that  she  accompanied  her 
husband  to  the  Holy  Land,  and  on  his  expeditions  into 
178 


LIFE,    AND    THE    TOMBS 

Scotland,  in  these  days  when  a  certain  sort  of  people  winter 
in  Palestine  and  shoot  in  the  HighlsLuds, />our  passer  le  temps. 
But  when  journeys  took  years  to  accomplish  and  were 
immensely  perilous,  they  were  great  feats  of  courage  and 
endurance,  even  for  a  man.  Only  an  equal  devotion  could 
have  made  them  possible  to  the  lesser  strength  of  a  woman ; 
and  it  is  no  wonder  if  a  legend  grew  round  the  name  of 
Eleanor.  An  old  historian  says :  "  She  was  a  woman  of 
great  piety,  moderation  and  tenderness,  fond  of  the  English, 
and  as  it  were  the  pillar  of  the  realm."  One  begins  to  realize 
why,  when  she  was  taken  ill  and  died  on  one  of  those 
expeditions,  Edward's  grief  and  his  manner  of  expressing  it 
were  things  to  astonish  the  world.  At  every  place  where 
her  body  rested  on  its  way  to  London,  he  caused  to  be  erected 
a  memorial  cross,  with  statues  of  the  Queen  that  are  declared 
to  be  (from  originals  still  remaining  at  Northampton  and 
Waltham),  "  the  crown  of  English  Gothic  architecture."  And 
these  were  in  addition  to  the  three  tombs  and  effigies  at 
Lincoln  Cathedral,  at  the  church  of  the  Blackfriars,  and  most 
magnificent  of  all,  this  one  in  the  Abbey  at  the  side  of  his 
father.  So  she  lies,  very  sweetly  and  richly  shrined,  her 
tomb  perpetuating  her  beauty  and  grace  and  courage.  And 
on  the  other  side  of  Henry  lies  Edward  her  husband  in  his 
plain  grey  chest,  its  native  marble  (laid  down  in  quiet  seas 
perhaps  a  million  years  ago,  before  our  island  was  an  island 
or  the  hum.an  race  had  begun)  symbolizing  some  steadfast 
and  enduring  force  of  character. 


179 


CHAPTER  XI :    The  Spirit  of  a  Nation 

THE  Abbey,  then,  is  not  a  place  of  Death,  but  of  Life. 
It  enshrines  pre-eminently,  not  the  Confessor  nor  any 
other  great  founder,  but  the  living  Spirit  of  our  Race. 
That  is  a  word  to  reiterate,  if  we  would  not  forget  to  be  proud 
of  our  past ;  and  guarding  tenaciously  some  measure  of  that 
spirit  through  a  gloomy  present,  hand  on  to  the  future  a 
record  which  shall  be  not  altogether  ignoble.  Therefore  one 
examines  a  little  closely  the  meaning  of  it. 

Marshalling  the  facts,  and  diving  down  to  the  earliest 
of  them,  the  fabric  itself  is  seen  as  the  spirit  made  visible 
of  many  generations  of  our  forbears.  Other  generations  stretch 
behind,  preparing  the  way  for  it,  and  other  races  are  absorbed 
into  it,  as  are  the  Norman  and  even  Saxon  foundations  on 
which  the  structure  is  reared,  and  the  French  ideas  from  which 
it  was  designed.  But  the  structure  itself  is  English,  by  so 
much  the  richer  for  the  foreign  elements  which  it  assimilated, 
yet  remaining  essentially  native. 

The  building  is,  too,  more  completely  representative  than 
any  or  all  of  the  monuments  that  have  been  crowded  into  it. 
For  while  they  commemorate  each  an  individual,  the  fabric 
is  the  united  effort  of  many  thousands  of  English  folk,  their 
ideas  embodied  in  their  handiwork.  Count  the  almost  count- 
less number  of  memorials  in  the  building,  both  worthy  and 
unworthy,  and  you  still  will  not  reach  a  figure  anywhere  near 
the  total  of  the  men  who  took  a  hand  in  the  building  of  it. 
And  if  it  be  replied — But  these  were  mere  units,  mechani- 
cally fulfilling  a  task;  whereas  each  monument  stands  for  a 
1 80 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

mind  and  a  conscious  purpose — one  must  take  leave  to  demur. 
For  that  is  an  assumption  based  on  the  changed  conditions 
of  modern  labour ;  and  it  quite  forgets  that  many  of  the 
monuments  have  little  enough  to  do  with  mind,  or  anything 
else  but  ugliness. 

The  most  cursory  glance  at  the  original  work  proves  that 
the  men  who  wrought  it  were  intelligent  and  conscious  artists  ; 
which  is  simply  to  say  that  they  took  joy  and  pride  in 
their  job.  Units  they  were  ;  without  the  supercilious  mere, 
which  would  have  amused  them  could  they  have  understood 
it.  And  they  were  so  little  mechanical  as  to  confound  our 
machine-ridden  notions.  They  had  a  complete  knowledge  of 
their  subject,  which  they  often  practised  in  all  of  its  many 
departments.  They  had  ideas  of  their  own,  based  on  tradition 
and  brought  to  the  critical  test  of  co-operative  service.  They 
had  an  eye  for  beauty  and  freedom  to  follow  it ;  and  their 
hands  were  trained  to  various  and  cunning  skill.  Above  all, 
they  possessed  a  sense  of  unity  which  made  them  join  gladly 
in  a  great  collective  effort.  These  men  were  the  flower  of 
England  when  England  was  a  nation  of  artists,  before  it 
began  to  dream  of  other  ambitions — colonial,  imperial,  or 
commercial. 

William  Morris  said:  "Westminster  Abbey,  in  spite  of  all 
injuries,  is  a  great  work  of  art.  ...  It  is  a  building  second  to 
none  amongst  all  the  marvels  of  architectural  beauty  produced 
by  the  Middle  Ages.  ...  It  is  the  work  of  no  one  man,  but 
of  the  people  of  south-east  England  working  in  the  manner 
which  the  traditions  of  the  ages    forced    upon   them  .  .  .  the 

i8i 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

work  of  the  inseparable  will  of  a  body  of  men  who  worked 
as  they  lived,  because  they  could  do  no  otherwise." 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  fabric  of  the  Abbey  is  itself 
a  most  precious  monument  to  the  English  spirit.  In  these 
walls  and  arches,  these  piers,  pillars  and  arcades,  these  windows 
and  vaulting :  wherever  remains  a  bit  of  the  original  work, 
there  are  the  living  mind  and  hand  of  the  men  who  made  it. 

It  was  not  long,  however,  before  this  collective  mind  began 
to  yield  place  to  individual  genius.  Of  course  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  the  individualistic  spirit  was  present  from  the 
beginning.  Edward  the  Confessor  and  Henry  III  no  doubt 
acted,  like  all  mere  humans,  from  mixed  motives  ;  and  built 
their  churches  as  well  from  ambition  as  from  piety.  But  that 
granted,  one  still  sees  those  royal  founders  co-operating  in  a 
real  sense  with  their  craftsmen.  Sympathy,  insight,  friendship, 
and  encouragement  they  gave,  with,  in  Henry's  case  at  least, 
downright  hard  thinking  and  anxiety.  It  is  their  spirit,  no  less 
than  the  spirit  of  the  workmen,  for  which  the  building  stands. 
But  reading  the  Abbey  history  from  its  monuments,  as  the  life 
of  a  nation  and  not  as  the  mausoleum  of  kings,  we  find  that  the 
great  individual  mind  began  to  appear  there  before  the  fabric 
was  complete.  That  is  perhaps  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
beginning  of  the  nave  was  delayed  for  nearly  a  hundred  years 
after  Henry  the  Third's  work,  and  that  it  was  long  in  finishing. 
In  that  interval  the  period  of  what  one  calls  the  collective 
mind  waned  from  its  zenith.  Had  the  work  proceeded 
continuously,  that  period  would  probably  have  covered  the 
whole  of  it ;  but  progress  was  slow,  with  many  interruptions ; 
182 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

and  the  church,  with  the  Lady  Chapel  of  Henry  VII,  was  not 
completed  until  1528. 

From  the  first,  of  course,  warriors  and  ecclesiastics  had 
found  a  burial-place  in  the  Abbey :  always  there  was  that 
strange  alliance  between  the  worshippers  of  Mars  and  the 
servants  of  the  Prince  of  Peace.  The  earliest  monuments, 
therefore,  are  the  tombs  of  kings,  soldiers,  and  prelates ;  but 
while  they  were  preparing  rich  caskets  to  hold  a  little  dust,  the 
nation  was  happily  building  a  house  meet  for  the  Spirit  of  God, 
and  making  of  it,  unconsciously,  a  home  for  the  eternal  Spirit 
of  Man.  There  is  no  monument  in  the  Abbey  for  the  men  who 
did  that  work.  Their  names  were  long  forgotten,  or  totally 
unknown  ;  and  they  have  only  recently  been  recovered  from 
limbo,  and  written  down  in  a  book,  by  Professor  Lethaby. 
The  lay  monuments  do  not  begin  until  the  great  co- 
operative epoch  is  on  the  wane ;  and  when  they  begin,  when 
the  spirit  of  England  becomes  focussed  in  certain  great 
individual  minds,  who  and  what  are  they  ?  I  think  it  is  pro- 
foundly significant  that  these  earliest  names  are  Chaucer  and 
John  of  Waltham  :  that  is  to  say,  the  Poet  and  the  Statesman. 
There  is  another  name,  rather  earlier  than  these  two.  Sir 
William  Trussel,  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons.  We 
have  already  seen  that  Trussel  acted  as  Procurator  for  the 
Parliament  in  the  deposition  of  Edward  II.  But  although  we 
know  that  he  was  buried  in  the  Abbey,  no  monument  remains 
to  him.  On  the  other  hand,  the  monument  of  Chaucer  is 
perhaps  the  best  known  of  all  :  certainly  it  is  equally  popular 
with  that  of  the  Confessor ;  while  that  of  John  of  Waltham,  a 

183 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

brass  in  a  grey  slab,  has  the  most  honoured  position  of  all,  in 
the  Chapel  of  the  Kings  itself.  He  was  buried  there  in  1395; 
and  Chaucer  was  buried  in  the  south  ambulatory  in  1400. 
Thus  the  first  gesture  of  this  Spirit  that  we  are  watching  is 
toward  the  familiar  genius  of  our  race  for  Law  and  Poetry. 

Of  that  aspect  of  the  Abbey  spirit,  however,  there  is  more 
to  be  said  than  can  be  contained  in  this  chapter.  Other  aspects 
seize  the  eye  as  it  glances  down  the  historical  review,  and  one 
surprising  fact  brings  it  abruptly  to  a  halt.  During  the  whole 
of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  the  monuments  which 
are  not  royal  are  almost  exclusively  those  of  the  noble  families 
which  took  their  rise  about  this  time.  Stanley,  Vere,  Russell, 
Cecil,  Percy,  Howard,  Sidney — such  names  fill  the  roll  as  their 
tombs  fill  the  chapels,  with  no  space  left  for  any  who  did  not 
follow  the  fortunes  of  kings.  So  that  one  might  believe  the 
English  nation  of  that  period  to  have  been  composed  entirely 
of  dukes,  earls,  and  counts,  with  their  corresponding  '  ladies,' 
and  of  course  a  few  knights  thrown  in.  Yet  there  must  have 
been  other  members  of  the  community,  for  one  seems  to 
remember  certain  great  events  during  those  two  hundred  years, 
and  in  particular  something  about  an  Armada.  Of  them, 
however,  the  Abbey  is  blank  and  silent.  There  is  no  sign  of 
those  impudent  heroic  adventurers,  Drake,  Frobisher,  and 
Hawkins ;  and  nothing  to  celebrate  that  wonderful  year  1588, 
in  which  all  three  chased  the  Spaniard  from  our  shores  and 
made  England  mistress  of  the  seas. 

Thus  the  intrepid  sailor-spirit,  most  ancient  of  all,  which 
made  our  race  possible  and  without  which  neither  Law  nor 
184 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

Poetry  could  have  been,  has  no  place  in  the  Abbey  until  a  much 
later  date.  Our  most  glorious  naval  epoch  is  unrecorded  there  ; 
and  if  we  were  bound  to  accept  the  monuments  of  this  long- 
period  as  representative  of  the  national  spirit,  it  would  be  a 
rather  poor  affair.  A  malicious  eye  might  even  see  it,  by  an 
oblique  turn,  as  the  native  trait  which  so  dearly  loves  a  lord ; 
and  one  could  hardly  deny  the  impeachment.  On  the  contrary, 
one  would  have  to  grant  to  the  cynic  that  even  two  centuries  of 
our  history  are  not  too  much  to  give  that  particular  weakness 
its  due  proportion.  But  fortunately  we  are  not  bound  to  accept 
these  noble  men  and  noble  dames  as  the  whole  nation  of  that 
time.  Of  its  greater  activities  and  achievements  they  do  not 
speak ;  and  yet  there  is  one  figure  which  appears  at  the  end 
of  the  period,  in  1599,  which  sums  up  the  whole  and  thus 
saves  it  from  utter  silence  and  oblivion.  It  is,  of  course, 
the  poet  Spenser ;  and  he  brings  in,  as  on  a  flood  tide, 
the  romance  that  was,  after  all,  the  dominant  spirit  of  that 
adventurous  age. 

There  followed  other  poets  upon  Spenser ;  but  it  was  not 
until  a  half-century  later  that  the  Abbey  took  on  its  unique 
character,  and  became  fully  the  spiritual  home  of  English  folk. 
Princes,  prelates,  and  soldiers  had  been  there  from  the  begin- 
ning. Statesmen  and  poets  came  in  very  early,  followed  by 
a  throng  of  nobles ;  but  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century  there  entered  the  people,  to  take  possession  of  the 
building  which  the  people  had  made.  Now  this  event  was  not 
accidental ;  and  it  did  not  follow  from  any  caprice  such  as  one 
may  fairly  describe   the   burying  of  John  of  Waltham   in   the 

185 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Royal  Chapel  and  the  burial  of  Hugolin  in  the  Confessor's 
treasury.  Neither  was  it,  as  so  many  movements  of  the 
English  mind  are,  tentative  and  half-conscious.  The  change 
was  deliberate  and  complete.  It  was  initiated  by  one  named 
Oliver  Cromwell,  a  typical  English  man  of  action  who  possessed 
also  the  rather  un-English  faculty  of  reasoning  to  his  acts.  So 
that  while  Hugolin  lies  in  the  Abbey  because  he  happened  to  be 
Treasurer  to  St  Edward,  and  John  of  Waltham  only  secured 
his  place  there,  against  indignant  outcry,  because  Richard  II 
happened  to  be  fond  of  him,  the  greater  soldiers  and  sailors 
of  the  Commonwealth  came  in  because  Cromwell  reasoned 
that  so  a  nation's  spirit  would  be  exalted. 

So  far  from  injuring  the  Abbey,  Cromwell  had  a  profound 
veneration  for  it.  We  may,  if  so  it  please  us,  accept  the  cynical 
view  that  he  got  himself  buried  in  the  Lady  Chapel  because  he 
believed  that  he  was  founding  another  dynasty.  There  will  still 
remain  the  recorded  fact  that  he  laid  the  Commonwealth  heroes 
in  the  Abbey  in  order  that  the  honour  thus  paid  to  them  should 
stimulate  national  endeavour.  They  came  in  full  array ;  and 
among  the  more  famous  were  Ireton,  Pym,  Blake,  Bradshaw, 
and  the  Earl  of  Essex.  Cromwell,  with  some  members  of  his 
family,  was  laid  in  a  vault  at  the  extreme  east  of  the  building, 
i.e.  at  the  east  end  of  the  Lady  Chapel.  They  are  not  there 
now ;  and  if  you  go  to  search  for  them,  you  will  not  know 
where  to  look.  For  at  the  Restoration,  the  bodies  of  those 
great  men,  to  the  number  of  twenty-one,  were  dug  up  and  flung 
together  into  a  pit  outside  the  Abbey.  Those  of  Cromwell, 
Ireton,  and  Bradshaw  were  hanged  at  Tyburn  ;  and  their  heads 
i86 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

struck  off  and  set  up  in  Westminster  Hall — this  was  at  the 
express  command  of  Charles  II,  so  blessedly  restored.  The 
fact  is  not  one  to  dwell  upon.  If  the  responsibility  of  it  lay 
with  the  nation,  the  national  spirit  could  hardly  have  borne  the 
shame  of  it.  Certainly,  and  quite  literally,  it  would  not  have 
survived  here  in  the  Abbey.  But  for  the  honour  of  that 
spirit  it  must  be  recorded  that  the  deed  was  the  deed  of  a 
King  ;  and  of  a  King  whose  illegitimate  children  were  afterward 
buried  in  the  very  vault  from  which  he  had  ejected  the  great 
Protector. 

The  bones  of  Cromwell  were  buried  at  Tyburn  beneath  the 
gallows  on  which  his  dead  body  was  hanged.  The  spirit  of 
Cromwell  remained  in  the  Abbey,  and  his  purpose  prevailed 
there.  For  from  that  time  were  gathered  into  it,  with  few 
exceptions,  all  that  was  eminent  in  every  department  of  English 
life.  Many  who  were  not  eminent,  and  who  were  even  un- 
worthy, got  in  too ;  but  let  them  rest.  Their  presence  serves  to 
emphasize  the  catholicity  of  this  English  temper.  So  too  with 
the  incongruity  of  the  crowded  monuments.  Some  of  them  are 
ludicrous ;  and  many  of  them  hurt  one's  sense  of  fitness.  Yet, 
without  condoning  either  bad  art  or  bad  taste,  one  sees  that 
they  are  but  the  price  we  have  to  pay  for  the  complete  ex- 
pression of  national  mind  and  character.  It  appears  that  we 
English  are  like  that.  It  is  as  though  Cromwell  bequeathed  to 
us,  as  an  inseparable  part  of  the  logical  liberal  principle  on 
which  he  threw  open  the  Abbey  to  the  people,  some  part  of 
the  Puritan  blindness  to  beauty. 

However  that  may  be,  from  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 

187 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

century  its  doors  were  open  to  all,  and  continued  so  until 
absolute  repletion  forbade  further  admittance.  Thus,  besides 
royal  and  noble  persons  and  great  soldiers,  sailors,  and  states- 
men :  in  addition  to  the  poets,  theologians,  men  of  letters, 
scholars,  and  musicians  who  may  be  said  to  represent  the  older 
order  of  our  civilization,  we  find  the  men  of  the  new  order — 
scientists  and  philosophers,  colonists  and  imperialists,  explorers, 
philanthropists,  and  engineers.  While  to  complete  its  repre- 
sentative character  are  private  citizens  and  foreign  guests. 

Among  such  a  multitude  one  is  almost  bewildered.  It  is 
impossible  to  think  of  them  coherently,  in  the  mass,  much 
less  to  envisage  their  one  essential  meaning.  What  we  can 
do,  however,  is  to  take  here  and  there  a  great  individual  figure 
and  try  to  understand  what  it  stands  for  in  English  life  and 
character.  In  this  way  we  may  perhaps  see  not  only  what  was 
its  peculiar  gift  to  our  spiritual  history,  but  may  even  catch  a 
glimpse  past  this  almost  chaotic  diversity  to  the  unity  of  the 
national  spirit  which  the  Abbey  enshrines. 

Poets  and  statesmen  must  be  left  aside  for  the  moment. 
Their  numbers  and  their  significance  are  too  important  to 
include  in  so  rapid  a  survey;  and  they  must  be  considered 
separately.  But  we  may  enter  other  spheres  in  which  the 
native  genius,  though  it  roamed  the  world  or  adventured  into 
what  was,  in  the  region  of  thought,  a  new  universe,  found  itself 
equally  at  home.  Let  us  therefore  look  first  at  Robert  Blake, 
Admiral,  who  was  buried  in  the  Abbey  in  1657.  And  if  it  be 
asked,  Why  first  at  him  ?  the  answer  is  simple.  He  stands  for 
the  sea,  and  the  sea  made  us,  not  only  as  a  nation  and  a 
188 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

maritime  power,  but  as,  vastly  more  ancient  and  remote,  it 
made  all  life. 

Blake  came  from  a  typical  English  family.  His  father  was 
a  merchant  at  Bridgwater  in  Somersetshire,  and  Robert,  born 
in  1599,  was  the  eldest  of  twelve  sons.  He  was  educated  at 
the  Bridgwater  Grammar  School  and  at  Wadham  College, 
Oxford,  where  it  appears  that  they  suspected  him  of  Republican 
tendencies.  They  would,  of  course ;  and  he  need  not,  merely 
for  that  reason,  have  been  a  very  red  revolutionary.  As  a  fact, 
he  was  of  too  moderate  a  temper  and  too  large  an  outlook  to 
be  a  violent  party  man.  Schooling  over,  he  went  back  to 
Bridgwater  and  continued  successfully  his  father's  business. 
It  was  as  a  merchant,  and  for  trading  purposes,  that  he  made 
his  first  voyages  and  learned  a  sailor's  craft.  One  likes  to 
speculate  what  might  have  happened  if  Merton  had  not  rejected 
him  as  a  Fellow.  It  seems  that  his  figure  was  too  short  and 
ungainly  for  them.  Had  he  but  had  a  few  more  inches,  and 
been  a  little  better  looking,  Oxford  might  have  gained  another 
beautiful  don — and  England  would  have  lost  her  noblest  sailor. 

From  the  year  1642  Blake  served  in  the  Civil  Wars :  he 
defended  Bristol,  attacked  Bridgwater,  held  Lyme  against  the 
Royalists,  took  Taunton  from  them  and  held  it.  He  was 
primarily  a  man  of  action,  and  is  said  to  have  been  brilliant 
in  command ;  yet  in  1645  he  sat  in  Parliament  as  Member  for 
Bridgwater,  and  was  afterward  a  member  of  the  Council  of 
State.  It  was  as  a  soldier  that  he  had  been  trained  in  war ; 
yet  he  was  appointed  to  the  chief  command  of  the  Fleet  in 
1649,     It  is  as  a  great  naval  hero  that  we  think  of  him,  and 

189 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

yet  his  fleet  was  composed  largely  of  merchant  ships  which  he 
fitted  out  as  men-of-war.  With  such  vessels  he  destroyed 
Prince  Rupert's  fleet,  subdued  the  Scillies,  and  took  Guernsey 
and  Jersey  from  the  Royalists. 

In  1651  he  sailed  against  Van  Tromp.  In  1652  that 
master  of  strategy  was  too  much  for  him;  but  in  1653  Blake 
put  to  sea  again,  and  the  great  Dutchman  was  finally  beaten. 
During  this  time  he  was  acting  as  senior  commissioner  of  the 
Admiralty.  In  1654  he  scoured  the  Mediterranean  for  African 
pirates.  In  1655  he  punished  the  Turks  at  Porto  Farina,  and 
in  1657  he  won  a  great  naval  victory  over  the  Spanish  at  Santa 
Cruz  of  Teneriffe.  Afterward,  falling  ill,  he  sailed  for  England  ; 
but  he  died  as  his  ship  was  entering  Plymouth  Sound,  and  was 
brought  to  the  Abbey  and  buried  with  great  pomp. 

An  historian  who  did  not  love  him  proclaims  his  ability 
as  a  navigator,  his  enterprise  and  his  immense  courage.  Others 
speak  of  his  chivalry,  his  lenience  to  a  defeated  foe,  and  his 
zeal  for  the  honour  of  England.  As  a  commander  he  was 
more  brilliant  than  subtle.  As  an  officer  he  appears  to  have 
been  stern,  but  in  his  personal  relations  loyal  and  deeply 
affectionate.  When  his  brother  Samuel,  who  was  serving 
under  him,  was  accidentally  killed  in  a  useless  skirmish, 
Blake  greeted  the  news  officially  with  the  words,  "  He  had  no 
business  there."  But  afterward  they  heard  him  crying  in 
his  room  :  "  Died  Abner  as  a  fool  dieth." 

One  does  not  try,  with  our  little  measure,  to  estimate  such 
a  man ;  but  some  things  are  sun-clear.  His  life  was  given  to 
the  service  of  England.  He  had  no  need  of  money,  and  served 
190 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

neither  for  gain  nor,  as  one  might  say  of  the  Elizabethan 
sailors,  from  sheer  exuberance.  His  character  was  of  complete 
integrity  :  astonishingly  of  a  piece,  and  of  a  fine  piece,  through- 
out. His  genius  was  of  that  native  type  (found  most  often 
amongst  our  sailors)  which  somehow  reconciles  the  diverse 
qualities  of  the  idealist  and  the  man  of  action,  and  astonishingly 
compels  success.  With  great  physical  energy  he  had  a  power  of 
steady  thinking :  with  dash,  daring,  and  supreme  courage  went 
an  exact  science  :  with  a  practical  knowledge  of  the  ways  of  com- 
merce were  joined  chivalry  and  a  complete  devotion  to  a  greater 
cause.  In  Admiral  Blake,  then,  is  an  authentic  and  powerful 
gleam  of  that  Spirit  of  the  Nation  which  dwells  in  the  Abbey. 
But  there  is  no  monument  to  him,  and  his  grave  will  not  be 
found  there,  for  he  was  one  of  the  Commonwealth  men  whose 
bones  were  flung  outside  the  Abbey  by  order  of  Charles  Stuart, 
second  of  that  name  upon  the  throne  of  England. 

But  now  let  us  take  greatness  of  another  kind.     Think  for 
a  moment  of  Isaac  Newton  : 

...  a  mind  forever 
Voyaging  through  strange  seas  of  Thought,  alone. 

That  is  what  Wordsworth  said  about  him ;  and  Words- 
worth, despite  the  jeers  of  the  irreverent,  could  do  a  little 
thinking  of  his  own.  If  he  himself  never  sailed  those  strange 
seas  alone  (for  he  always  carried  a  pilot)  at  any  rate  he 
knew  enough  about  them  to  judge  the  ability  of  a  better 
navigator  than  himself.  It  is,  indeed,  only  by  the  witness  of 
other  great  minds  that  those  who  are  not  physicists  can 
approach  a  conception   of  Newton's   grandeur.     There  was  a 

191 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

time  when,  with  a  too-complacent  ignorance  of  Newton,  and  a 
too-facile  impatience  with  Pope,  one  thought  the  epitaph  of 
the  little  poet  at  Twickenham  extravagant  to  the  point  of 
blasphemy.  It  is  almost  too  familiar  to  quote,  but  here 
it  is  : 

Nature  and  Nature's  laws  lay  hid  in  night. 
God  said,  '  Let  Newton  be,'  and  all  was  light. 

One  challenged  what  seemed  hyperbole,  and  had  to  confess, 
abashed,  not  only  the  justice  of  the  immense  claim,  but  the 
precise  rightness  of  its  expression.  Again,  one  knew  about 
Voltaire's  profound  admiration  :  that  he  wrote  a  Philosophie  de 
Neuton,  that  he  was  present  at  the  funeral  in  the  Abbey,  and 
that  he  was  responsible,  among  much  other  popularization  of 
our  great  philosopher,  for  floating  the  '  apple '  story,  in 
connexion  with  Newton's  theory  of  universal  gravitation. 
Yet  one  dimly  and  perversely  thought  (if  it  can  be 
called  thinking),  that  this  feeling  for  Newton  merely  came 
from  Voltaire's  partiality  for  England  and  all  things  English. 
And  this  although  one  knew  the  relentless  logic  of  the  great 
Frenchman's  mind. 

There  would  be  no  point  in  making  that  confession  of 
stupidity  now,  if  I  supposed  it  unique.  But  I  believe  the  fact 
to  be  that  many  people  have  a  similar  vague  notion  of 
Newton's  genius,  and  for  that  matter,  of  many  other  great 
men  buried  in  the  Abbey.  It  is  high  time  to  open  our  eyes 
and  try  to  perceive  of  what  stature  our  giants  are.  The  effort 
is  especially  difficult  in  the  case  of  Newton.  Did  not  Voltaire, 
with  an  intellect  as  vivid  as  lightning  and  often  as  devastating, 
192 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

say  of  him :  "  II  a  trouvd  des  vdrit^s  :  mals  il  les  a  cherchdes 
et  placdes  dans  un  abime  :  il  faut  y  descendre  et  les  apporter  au 
grand  jour."  To  plunge  into  the  depths  of  Newton's  thought 
and  bring  his  achievements  to  popular  understanding  was  an 
act  of  homage  paid  by  the  French  philosopher  to  the  English 
one.  In  such  a  reflection  the  average  mind  can  see  something 
of  Newton's  greatness — his  lifelong  passion  for  pure  science, 
his  unremitting  mathematical  labours  and  their  resultant  dis- 
coveries, recorded  in  the  Principia  :  his  theories — of  gravitation, 
of  the  spectrum,  of  optical  and  astronomical  laws.  We  have 
seen  how  Pope,  epigrammatic  and  precise,  summed  up  the 
significance  of  those  discoveries  in  the  phrase,  God  said 
''Let  Newton  be,'  and  all  was  light.  Voltaire,  even  better 
equipped  to  comprehend  Newton's  science,  has  gathered  it 
into  an  epigram  equally  witty.  It  will  be  found  in  a  poem 
to  his  '  divine  Emily '  which  is  prefaced  to  the  Philosophie  de 
Neuton,  the  1738  edition  : 

.  .  .  Tame  de  la  Nature, 
Etoit  enseveli  dans  une  nuit  obscure, 
Le  compas  de  Neuton  mesurant  I'univers, 
Leve  enfin  ce  grand  voile  et  les  cieux  sont  ouverts. 

Average  mortals,  standing  a  long  way  off  from  that 
Colossus,  still  can  see,  of  the  human  aspect  of  the  man,  a 
very  great  figure.  The  long  life,  from  birth  at  Woolsthorpe 
in  1642  to  death  at  Kensington  in  1727,  was  crowded  with 
toil :  not  only  that  incident  upon  his  philosophy,  but  all  that 
is  entailed  in  a  hold  upon  affairs  and  service  in  the  workaday 
world.      Besides  holding  the    Lucasian   Chair  at   Cambridge, 

N  193 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

the  labour  involved  in  the  preparation  and  revision  of  the 
Pnncipia,  the  constant  argument  and  discussion  which  are 
the  breath  of  life  to  the  scientist — he  was  first  a  Fellow  of  the 
Royal  Society,  then  a  member  of  its  Council  and  then  its 
President.  He  was  elected  and  re-elected  to  Parliament  to 
represent  the  University  of  Cambridge ;  and  he  served  at  the 
Mint,  as  Warden  and  finally  as  Master,  cleansing  its  ad- 
ministration and  making  a  revolution  in  the  currency.  Such 
industry,  apparently,  is  genius  always  stern  to  exact  from 
itself. 

It  is  said  that  Newton  had  not  a  very  impressive  appear- 
ance. He  was  of  middle  size,  and  no  one  would  have  guessed 
from  his  manner  the  greatness  of  the  man.  That  is  not 
surprising,  perhaps,  remembering  how  often  the  distinguished- 
looking  person  is  without  distinction.  But  one  who  knew  him 
said  he  was  "  the  whitest  soul "  ;  and  another :  "  Newton  is 
the  greatest  philosopher  and  one  of  the  best  of  men."  The 
unassuming  manner  was  rooted  in  a  deeper  modesty.  He 
put  forward  his  theories,  as  he  said,  "  without  any  absolute 
positiveness  "  ;  and  every  one  knows  the  famous  thing  he  said 
one  day  toward  the  end  of  his  life  : 

I  do  not  know  what  I  may  appear  to  the  world ;  but  to  myself  I 
seem  to  have  been  only  like  a  boy  playing  on  the  seashore,  and  diverting 
myself  in  now  and  then  finding  a  smoother  pebble  or  a  prettier  shell 
than  ordinary,  whilst  the  great  ocean  of  truth  lay  all  undiscovered 
before  me. 

In  that  quiet  voice  one  may  hear  a  tone  indubitably 
English  :  witness  to  a  character  that  this  Spirit  of  a  Nation 
194 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

casts  up  a  little  more  frequently,  perhaps,  than  the  stupendous 
intellect  of  a  Newton. 

Among  churchmen  we  might  look  at  Simon  Langham  at 
one  end  of  the  list,  or  Dean  Stanley  at  the  other.  We  should 
see  in  both,  despite  their  so  different  epoch  and  order  of  society, 
great  patriots,  great  English  ecclesiastics,  and  great  and 
generous  men ;  while  Langham,  for  all  his  official  titles  of 
Treasurer  of  England  and  Chancellor,  ranked  perhaps  not 
much  higher  as  courtier  and  statesman  than  his  Victorian 
successor.  That,  too — the  close  link  between  Church  and 
State,  "between  the  Abbey  and  the  Throne — is  essentially 
English  and  peculiarly  of  Westminster. 

From  the  engineers  we  might  take  James  Watt,  and  with 
him  the  native  aptitude  for  seizing  an  idea  hitherto  floating, 
so  to  speak,  in  the  void  of  theory,  inventing  for  it  a  bodily 
form,  and  giving  it  a  practical  application.  Or  we  might  go 
and  look  at  the  great  windows  in  the  north  aisle  which 
commemorate  some  engineer-makers  of  our  modern  world — 
Kelvin,  Baker,  Siemens.  Builders  of  bridges,  makers  of  roads, 
masters  and  directors  of  energy,  movers  of  mountains,  cutters 
of  canals  and  cleavers  of  a  path  through  the  sea — the  spirit  of 
England  through  such  men  took  hold  on  the  natural  laws  that 
Newton  discovered,  and  by  their  aid  bound  nature  herself  to 
the  service  of  mankind. 

Or,  among  the  musicians  who  remind  us  that  there  is  at 
any  rate  one  art  in  which  we  have  excelled,  and  may — who 
knows  ? — excel  again  some  day,  there  is  Henry  Purcell, 
organist  to  the  Abbey.     He  died  in  1695  and  was  buried  near 

195 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

his  organ.  And  there  is  Henry  Lawes,  buried  in  the  cloisters 
in  1662,  for  whom  Milton,  lover  of  music  in  that  age  when 
England  led  the  musical  world,  wrote  a  sonnet : 

Harry,  whose  tuneful  and  well-measured  song 
First  taught  our  English  music  how  to  span 
Words  with  just  note  and  accent. 

Dante  shall  give  Fame  leave  to  set  thee  higher 
Than  his  Casella,  whom  he  woo'd  to  sing, 
Met  in  the  milder  shades  of  Purgatory. 

Of  Wolfe,  and  the  Celtic  warrior  spirit  which  rushed  from 

Wales  and  from  Ireland  to  fight  the  battles  of  England,  there 

is  no  space   to   speak  adequately.     Wolfe  may  stand  for  the 

many  who  represent  our  colonizing  genius,  and  who  made  of 

our  race  a  larger  entity,  not  English  any  more,  but  British. 

Again   one   sees,    through    the   brilliance   of    the   soldier,    the 

integrity  of  the  man.     It  is  a  quality  which  has  a  habit  of 

recurring  in  our  great  men ;  and  if  its  repetition  seems  a  little 

monotonous,  I  cannot  help  it :  I  do  but  record  the  fact.     Here, 

again,  integrity  is  seen  to  lie  at  the  root  of  greatness ;   while 

there  is  also  seen,  as  the  individual  note  of  his  genius,  that 

characteristic  of  the  English  military  spirit  which  does  not  love 

militarism    for   its  own    sake.     Wolfe  hated   compulsion,  and 

loathed  the  brutality  of  war.     Every  one  knows  that  just  before 

his  last  battle  he  said  that  he  would  rather  have  written  Gray's 

Elegy  than  have  the  glory  of  taking  Quebec.     Yet  under  his 

essential    gentleness,    his    vivacity,    his    hot    temper,    and    a 

sensitiveness  too  fine  for  the  rough  business  he  had  on  hand, 

was  a  responsibility  which   held   him   steadily   to   a   detested 

196 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

calling.  He  had  the  swift  perception  and  daring  executive 
ability  that  made  him  a  successful  general ;  but  they  also  made 
him  a  searching  critic  of  himself  and  others.  "  We  are  the 
most  egregious  blunderers  in  war"  is  one  of  his  dicta  which 
throws  light  not  only  on  Wolfe's  mental  attitude,  and  the 
critical  Celtic  mind  in  its  relation  to  the  vSaxon,  but  on  our 
long  story  of  muddling  through  in  land  warfare.  Yet  below 
this  Celtic  impatience  with  the  dull  and  the  slow  was  a  quality 
which  both  Celt  and  Saxon  share  pretty  equally ;  and  it  is 
expressed  in  the  last  order  he  gave  at  the  final  attack  on 
Quebec  :  "  The  officers  and  men  loill  remember  what  their 
country  expects  from  them"  The  words  have  a  familiar  ring 
in  English  ears  :  and  it  is  significant  that  they  have.  They 
remind  us  of  the  last  order  of  the  great  sailor  who  does  not  lie 
in  the  Abbey.  Yet  Wolfe  anticipated  Nelson  in  that  command, 
or  rather  one  should  say,  in  that  rallying-cry  to  the  spirit  of 
patriotism.  And  who  can  say  how  many  times  in  our  history 
the  words  of  Wolfe's  last  order  were  anticipated,  or  when  the 
cry  '  For  England  '  first  was  uttered  ? 

That  cry  was  not  the  battle-cry  of  Livingstone.  The  mystic's 
eye  saw  a  larger  horizon  than  that  which  bounded  the  shores 
of  Britain,  a  horizon  wide  as  the  whole  of  humanity.  Of  his 
conversion  in  1832,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  he  said  :  "  I  resolved 
to  devote  my  life  to  the  alleviation  of  human  misery."  But 
that  sudden  flower  of  resolution  was  from  years  of  growth  and 
preparation  in  the  patient  Scotch  way.  We  see  Livingstone  as 
a  little  lad  working  in  a  cotton  factory,  with  Virgil  or  Horace 
propped  open  on  the  spinning-jenny  so  that  he  could  catch  a 

197 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

few  sentences  as  he  worked.  We  see  him  as  he  grew  older,  and 
always  with  the  same  big  intellectual  appetite,  tackling  the 
natural  sciences  and  finally  deciding  to  become  a  medical 
missionary.  Then  there  was  the  labour  of  training  in  medicine 
and  divinity  before  he  was  fit  to  embark  on  his  humane  mission 
to  the  dark  continent. 

The  story  of  his  life  in  Africa  is  one  of  the  great  epics  of 
the  world.  Physical  courage,  endurance,  daring,  and  resource 
are  the  least  part  of  the  wonder.  For  there  were  the  spiritual 
qualities,  with  goodwill  at  their  root,  of  course,  which  carried 
him  unhurt  among  savage  tribes,  subduing  them  as  by  some 
gentle  magic ;  and  there  were  those  other  spiritual  qualities — 
of  imagination,  of  tenacity,  and  of  devotion  to  the  advancement 
of  knowledge,  which  made  him  one  of  the  greatest  explorers 
that  an  exploring  race  has  produced.  Livingstone  the  lion- 
hearted,  the  practical  mystic,  brings  to  the  Abbey  spirit  the 
religious  fervour  of  the  Scots  ;  and  he  brings  it  in  the  Scots 
way,  with  their  grave  intellectual  strength,  their  moral  force, 
and  their  solid  ability. 

There  is  no  finality  in  this  subject,  but  our  study  of  it 
must  stop  somewhere.  One  may  perhaps  best  close  it  on  a 
view  which  is  not  personal  nor  even  national,  but  which  is  that 
of  the  same  clear-eyed  Frenchman  who  taught  us  to  understand 
Newton.  Voltaire  was  long  enough  a  bogy  with  which  to 
frighten  literary  children.  Mephistopheles  himself  had  not  so 
dark  a  hue  as  that  with  which  this  Son  of  the  Lightning  was 
painted.  The  Church  in  particular  hated  him  ;  and  one  sees 
why.  Is  it  not,  therefore,  a  startling  and  an  ironic  fact,  that 
198 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

this  building  which  is  the  heart  of  the  English  Church  should 
have  received  its  most  splendid  eulogy  from  him  ? 

True,  it  is  not  for  its  ecclesiastical  function  that  Voltaire 
praises  the  Abbey ;  but  rather  for  the  humane  and  catholic 
temper  that  it  represents,  which  we  have  seen  dwelling  there 
as  the  Spirit  of  the  Nation.  His  praise  is  associated  with  the 
tombs  of  actors  in  the  Abbey,  of  whom  we  might  perhaps  take 
Garrick  and  Irving  as  the  greatest  figures,  though  Garrick 
himself  said  of  Mrs  Gibber  (who  is  buried  in  the  north 
cloister):  "Gibber  dead!  Then  tragedy  expired  with  her  I" 
The  point  that  struck  fire  from  Voltaire  was  the  double-edged 
truth  that  here  in  England  drama  was  honoured  alike  by 
layman  and  churchman,  whereas  in  his  own  country  it  lay 
under  a  ban  which  condemned  absolutely  both  the  dramatist 
and  the  acting  profession.  In  his  Vie  de  Moli^re  he  pours 
out  scorn  against  that  anathema  of  the  Ghurch  which,  at  the 
best,  dealt  undeserved  pain  to  gifted  and  honourable  people ; 
and  at  the  worst  but  served  to  manufacture  crime.  He  tells 
how  Moliere,  the  blameless  bourgeois — whom  one  always  thinks 
of  as  the  wise  Jester  of  the  Gourt  of  Louis  XIV,  chastising  the 
follies  of  the  age  with  such  just  and  comical  ridicule — how  he, 
who  quite  literally  fulfilled  an  avowed  purpose  to  correct  people 
while  he  amused  them,  was  only  got  buried  with  difficulty  in 
consecrated  ground.  Louis,  the  shining  Sun-king,  himself 
had  almost  to  go  down  on  his  knees  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Paris,  and  entreat  him  to  allow  his  little  friend  the  dramatist 
and  comedian  to  be  buried  in  a  church.  So,  when  a  brilliant 
French     actress,    Mademoiselle     Lecouvreur,    died,    and     the 

199 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Church's  law  of  excommunication  still  held,  refusing  the 
sacraments  to  actors  and  denying  them  Christian  burial, 
Voltaire  looked  across  the  Channel  and  remembered  that  the 
English  had  a  different  way  of  ordering  these  things  : 

Quoi !  n'est-ce  done  qu'en  Angleterre 

Que  les  mortels  osent  penser  ? 
O  rivale  d'Athene  !  6  Londre !  heureuse  terre  ! 
Ainsi  que  des  tyrans,  vous  avez  su  chasser 
Les  prejuges  honteux.  .  .  . 
Quiconque  a  des  talens  a  Londre  est  un  grand  homme. 

L'abondance  et  la  liberte 
Ont  apres  deux  mille  ans  chez  vous  ressuscite 

L'esprit  de  la  Grece  et  de  Rome. 

We  reply,  of  course,  to  the  kind  Frenchman  that  that  is 
too  much  honour.  No,  we  have  not  yet  quite  eliminated  shame- 
ful prejudices ;  we  do  not  dare  to  think  so  very  hard,  nor  so 
very  boldly ;  while  as  for  the  spirit  of  Greece  and  Rome,  if  we 
had  not  inherited  some  faint  gleam  of  it,  I  should  like  to  know 
what  the  old  Universities,  and  their  compulsory  Greek,  were 
doing  all  those  centuries.  We  are  bound  in  truth  to  protest 
that  the  life  for  which  the  Abbey  stands  is  not  a  thing  of 
classical  perfection  and  austere  intellectual  force.  It  is  a  much 
more  complex  and  imperfect  thing  which  yet,  familiar  and 
lovable,  has  its  roots  deep  in  the  fibre  of  every  English  being. 

Months  after  this  book  was  written,  and  while  it  was  just 
issuing  from  the  press,  there  occurred  an  event  which  set  the 
seal  of  our  epoch  upon  the  Abbey  and  revealed  very  strikingly 
the  aspect  of  it  which  this  chapter  has  tried  to  express. 
200 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

The  Great  War  had  been  over  for  two  years,  and  Europe 
lay  in  the  trough  of  a  heavy  sea  of  weariness  and  reaction. 
Many  evil  effects  had  followed  from  that  vast  madness  which, 
like  a  storm  in  the  world's  brain,  had  left  a  habit  of  violence, 
a  cancerous  cynicism,  lassitude,  pessimism,  indifference.  The 
ideals  for  which  the  masses  of  men  had  fought  were  forgotten 
or  flouted  :  the  magniiicent  heroism  with  which  so  many  had 
given  their  lives  seemed  to  have  been  wasted  in  achieving  a 
peace  which  was  no  peace,  and  in  creating  a  new  European 
order  hardly  better  than  that  which  it  replaced.  Fierce  material 
ills  darkened  existence  over  a  large  part  of  the  world  ;  and  even 
in  England,  happy  by  comparison  with  famine  and  disease 
elsewhere,  there  were  riots  of  unemployed ;  men  who  had 
fought  our  battles  could  not  find  the  means  to  live ;  and 
party  politicians  could  not  summon  sufficient  greatness  to 
unite  in  healing  the  desperate  state  of  Ireland.  The  life 
of  the  spirit  seemed  dead. 

Then,  suddenly,  the  Spirit  of  the  Nation  was  reawakened. 
On  the  second  anniversary  of  the  Armistice,  the  nth  of 
November,  1920,  a  new  Shrine  was  made  at  Westminster. 
An  unknown  British  soldier  who  had  died  fighting  in  France 
was  brought  home  to  the  Abbey,  and  was  buried  in  the  west 
end  of  the  nave. 

It  was  no  golden  and  jewelled  shrine  such  as  had  been 
made  by  Henry  III  for  the  Confessor,  but  a  plain  and  simple 
grave.  Yet  the  Unknown  was  interred  with  great  honour 
and  solemnity,  in  the  presence  of  representatives  of  the  whole 
nation,  and  mourners  of  all  classes.     The  King  was  his  chief 

201 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

mourner :  the  pall-bearers  were  high  officers  of  all  the  fight- 
ing forces  :  statesmen  followed  the  King  in  the  funeral 
procession,  and  following  them  again  marched  ex-soldiers  of 
all  ranks  who  had  fought  in  the  War.  Thus  the  nation 
came  to  the  Abbey,  to  place  there  a  sign  that  the  Spirit  of 
England  was  not  dead,  but  living  still ;  and  as  the  Dean 
uttered  the  words  of  the  Burial  Service,  Earth  to  earth,  ashes 
to  ashes,  dust  to  dust,  the  King,  standing  at  the  head  of  the 
grave,  poured  upon  the  lowered  coffin  some  earth  which  had 
been  brought  from  France. 

Later,  when  the  ceremony  was  over,  the  grave  was  filled 
with  the  same  French  earth;  and  this  touch  of  symbolism 
has  perhaps  the  most  intimate  significance  of  the  whole 
impressive  event.  For  it  reminds  us  primarily  that  Britain 
fought  in  the  Great  War  because  of  her  friendship  with 
France.  In  the  longer  view,  of  course,  she  fought  in  her 
own  defence ;  but  it  is  sober  truth  to  say  that  the  longer  view 
was  hardly  envisaged  by  the  millions  of  volunteer  British 
soldiers  who  sprang  to  arms  when  Belgium  was  invaded 
and  France  was  threatened  in  19 14.  They  were  not  apt  to 
look  so  far  ahead,  or  reason  about  their  own  interests  in  just 
that  mood.  They  were  prompted  by  indignation  at  the  fate 
of  Belgium,  and  fidelity  to  France.  Hence  it  was  fitting 
that  this  grave  of  a  British  soldier  who  died  for  France 
should  be  made  from  French  earth.  But  there  is  further 
significance  in  it  if  we  remember  the  age-old  association  of  the 
Abbey  with  French  life  and  art  and  ideas.  From  the  beginning 
the  influence  of  France  was  there,  in  the  very  fabric  of  the 
202 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    A    NATION 

church,  in  the  character  of  its  founders,  in  the  lives  of  the 
men  who  built  it.  So  it  continued  through  the  centuries  ; 
and  so,  appropriately,  the  old  friendship  is  crowned  at  last 
by  this  tomb  of  a  British  soldier  of  the  twentieth  century. 

But  the  larger  meanings  of  that  tomb  are  inescapable. 
The  Unknown  Warrior  who  now  comes  to  rest  here  brings  in 
with  him,  vicariously,  the  heroism  and  the  sacrifice  of  a  nation. 
He  brings  the  Spirit  of  the  English  race  as  it  rose  in 
generous  idealism  in  the  epoch  of  world-crisis  which  we  call 
the  Great  War.  In  the  Abbey  "a  terrible  beauty  is  born" 
at  this  new  grave — a  beauty  quite  unlike  that  of  the  other 
Shrine  at  the  east  end  of  the  church,  where  Edward,  the 
"  martyr  without  blood-letting,"  rests.  For  this  unnamed 
martyr,  of  a  peace-loving  native  temper  like  that  earlier  one, 
nevertheless  laid  down  his  life  for  an  ideal.  Hating  the 
insanity  of  warfare  with  the  hatred  of  the  modern  rational 
mind,  and  shrinking  from  bloodshed  with  the  modern 
humane  sensibility,  he  yet  brought  himself  to  the  last  horror 
of  killing  his  fellows.  But  he  justified  his  act  by  a  passionate 
conviction  that  in  this  way  he  might  protect  the  weak  ;  that 
so  he  might  help  to  give  greater  freedom  and  justice  to 
the  world  ;  and,  above  all,  that  by  this  means  old  wrongs 
would  be  put  right,  and  war  should  be  made  to  cease  from 
the  world.  That  was  his  loftiest,  his  most  determined  motive. 
At  this  Shrine,  therefore,  the  ancient  Spirit  of  England  lives 
with  the  strange  new  power  of  a  nation  risen  in  arms  to 
destroy  for  ever  the  arbitrament  of  arms. 


203 


CHAPTER  XII :    The  Law  and  the 

Prophets 

WE  saw  that  almost  from  the  beginning  the  Statesman 
and  the  Poet  found  their  way  into  the  Abbey. 
They  gathered  in  great  numbers  as  time  passed, 
and  became  dominant  among  all  the  varied  elements  of  national 
life  represented  there.  So  that  to-day,  entering  the  building 
by  the  north  door,  and  crossing  inevitably  to  the  south 
transept,  our  path  is  lined  by  their  cenotaphs. 

Every  bunch  of  school-children  coming  up  from  the 
suburbs  on  the  awesome  adventure  of  a  visit  to  the  Abbey 
sees  first  the  statues  of  Chatham,  Beaconsfield,  and  Gladstone. 
Then  they  pass  directly  (with  perhaps  one  fearful  glance 
en  route  toward  the  Holy  Place  and  its  mystery)  to  the  tomb 
of  Chaucer.  And  they  arrive  finally,  but  only  after  a  complete 
exploration  of  Poets'  Corner,  at  the  Chapel  of  the  Kings 
and  the  Shrine  of  the  Confessor.  The  progress  is  symbolic. 
The  phalanx  of  statesmen  at  the  entrance  stands  at  guard. 
Law  opens  the  path  and  makes  the  way  clear ;  and  poets,  kings, 
and  all  else  must  follow  after  it. 

Now  that  arrangement  of  the  monuments  just  happens 
to  be  so,  of  course.  No  one  supposes  that  the  deans  who 
allocated  places  to  Peel,  Grattan,  and  the  rest  intended  thus 
to  set  forth  the  truth  that  the  statesmen  stand  for  a  power 
greater  than  kings  and  an  English  instinct  older  than  the 
Church.  I  should  not  wonder  if  the  idea  never  occurred  to 
them.  It  may  even  be  that  had  they  thought  about  the  matter 
204 


THE    LAW    AND    THE    PROPHETS 

in  this  way,  the  statesmen  would  not  have  occupied  that  site 
at  all,  but  would  have  been  put  in  another  less  prominent  one. 
Yet  the  accident  is  the  more  illuminating.  Evidently  this 
element  is  so  much  a  part  of  our  life  as  to  be  one  with  it ;  it 
is  something  so  familiar  that  it  passes  unobserved.  The  civil 
power  predominates,  in  our  matter-of-course  way,  without  any 
flourish  of  trumpets.  Law — by  which  of  course  one  does  not 
mean  the  mere  legal  flummery  in  which  it  wraps  itself,  but 
the  spirit  of  justice  and  order — is  thus  seen  to  be  at  the 
basis  of  our  national  character  and  history. 

That  is  a  doctrine  to  deal  confusion  to  other  than  kings 
and  ecclesiastics.  "What!"  one  imagines  the  outcry.  "Is 
mere  Law,  prosaic  and  dry-as-dust,  to  rank  higher  than 
Intellect,  and  Genius,  and  Heroism?"  It  certainly  seems  sheer 
heresy.  The  shades  of  Newton,  Chaucer,  Blake,  rise  in  august 
protesting  dignity.  A  hundred  others  rush  before  us  with 
reproachful  eyes,  proclaiming  a  hundred  things  more  inspiring 
— courage,  self-sacrifice,  patriotism,  daring,  learning,  art, 
philosophy,  science,  adventure,  humane  endeavour,  pioneer- 
ing, exploration,  and  many  more.  The  air  grows  thick  with 
these  ghosts  of  what  were  Englishmen,  struggling  manfully 
for  an  idea.  And  they  clamour,  indignantly,  that  those  ideals 
should  have  the  supreme  place. 

Probably,  in  any  other  country  but  England,  they  would 
have  the  first  place.  France  would  certainly  honour  pure 
intellect,  Italy  art,  and  Germany  science.  But  England,  while 
she  gathers  them  all  under  her  wing  in  a  motherly  way, 
makes  it  clear  from  the  outset  that   the   home  in  which  she 

205 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

shelters  them  is  made  by  the  laws  of  the  home,  and  that  the 
laws  are  for  obedience.  Even  the  wilful  brood  of  genius,  rest- 
less, rebellious,  discontented,  impossible  to  satisfy  by  order  and 
rule,  she  subdues  at  last.  Even  the  ancient  Spirit  of  Poetry, 
old  as  herself  and,  like  herself,  eternal,  she  draws  into  a  union 
with  that  Spirit  of  Law  so  close  and  complete  that  the  two 
seem  to  be  the  twin  parts  of  her  being.  Yet  in  the  twinning 
there  is  a  bias ;  and  the  most  English  of  English  poets  are 
those  who,  like  Wordsworth  or  Tennyson,  accepted  the  ordered 
fabric  of  society  as  it  stands  planted  on  the  law  of  their 
land. 

The  Romantic  will  protest  furiously  against  this.  He 
will  declare  that  it  is  ludicrously  wrong :  not  a  simple,  mild 
misreading  of  the  facts,  but  the  facts  literally  standing  on 
their  heads.  He  will  cite  you  poet  after  poet  who  flouted 
the  laws  and  raged  against  them  and  jeered  at  them.  He  will 
name  to  you  poets  who  were  a  law  unto  themselves.  He 
will,  with  vehement  conviction,  remind  you  that  liberty  is  the 
poet's  life-blood,  that  always  his  genius  is  most  vital  when  most 
free,  and  that  to  bind  him  to  the  law  is  therefore  to  slay  him. 
Finally  he  will  flourish  at  you  a  truly  embarrassing  list  of 
rebels  from  the  roll  of  English  poets,  young,  eager,  and 
recalcitrant,  and  will  conclude  in  triumph  :  "  And  what  about 
Shelley  and  Byron  ?  " 

Well,  we  shall  retort — though  without  much  zest  for 
scoring  a  point  over  this  particular  antagonist — IVhat  about 
them?  Was  not  Shelley  turned  out  of  Oxford,  and  did  not 
the  authorities  at  Westminster  refuse  burial  in  the  Abbey  to 
206 


THE    LAW    AND    THE    PROPHETS 

Byron  ?  Which  is  to  say  that  those  two  rebels,  remaining 
unreconciled  to  the  Mother's  laws,  were  outcast  from  her  home. 
Those  are  not  facts  to  gloat  over :  one  remembers  them  with 
shame.  And  yet,  as  mere  exceptions,  these  two  poets  illustrate 
the  rule  that  we  are  regarding.  A  greater  than  they  might  have 
been  cited  in  such  an  argument.  Milton,  at  the  first  glance, 
would  seem  to  be  our  Romantic's  chiefest  support.  He  was 
in  a  sense  the  greatest  rebel  of  them  all.  He  is  not  buried  in 
the  Abbey  for  that  reason  ;  and  for  a  very  long  time  there  was 
not  even  a  monument  permitted  to  him  there.  Yet,  apart  from 
the  mere  data  of  history,  which  prove  that  his  rebellion  was 
not  against  law  but  lawlessness,  it  seems  hardly  possible  to 
read  six  lines  of  his  poetry  without  hearing  the  majestic  har- 
mony of  his  mighty  spirit  with  the  Spirit  of  Justice  and  of  Order. 
That  he  and  many  other  poets  made  war  against  bad  laws 
does  not  mean  that  they  were  at  enmity  with  that  spirit,  for  bad 
laws  are  its  mere  decaying  garment.  The  English  poet  who 
revolted  against  something  unjust,  false  or  obsolete,  turned 
upon  it  in  direct  attack.  The  thing  was  amended  in  conse- 
quence. It  was  done  slowly,  perhaps,  and  incompletely :  yet 
it  was  done.  The  Spirit  of  Law  responded  to  that  extent  to 
the  Spirit  of  Poetry.  The  relation  between  the  two  was  so 
close  that  they  constantly  acted  and  reacted  upon  each  other. 
If  the  more  deliberate  spirit  took  toll  of  some  measure  of  poetic 
ardour  and  audacity  :  if  the  poet  became,  when  the  fire  of  youth 
burnt  low,  acquiescent  and  even  approving :  if  he  sometimes 
forgot  the  younger  vision  of  El  Dorado,  or  the  City  of  God,  or 
whichever  had  been  his  particular  lodestar — one  does  not  claim 

207 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

that  that  was  a  very  desirable  consummation.  One  simply 
records  the  fact,  noting  at  the  same  time  that  he  often  turned 
to  cities  nearer  home  and  devoted  himself  to  their  amelioration. 
It  may  be  no  cause  for  boasting  that  the  high-soaring  Spirit  of 
Poetry  got  its  wings  a  little  clipped  in  this  process ;  but  it  is  at 
least  a  cause  for  thankfulness  that  the  Spirit  of  Law,  apt  to  fly 
too  low  and  too  heavily,  was  in  England  compelled  to  a  rather 
higher  flight  in  consequence  of  that  union. 

It  is  easy  to  sneer  at  the  conjunction  of  Poetry  and 
Politics.  But  the  superior  persons  who  do  so  forget  that  it 
is  something  radical  in  the  native  temperament.  They — the 
superior  ones — are  tainted  with  the  mode  of  the  moment  to 
decry  the  politician,  because  they  do  not  see  quite  what  he 
stands  for,  nor  remember  his  large  part  in  our  history.  The 
fashion  is  un-English,  for  the  plain  reason  that  English  poli- 
ticians have  usually  been  by  comparison  honourable  men ;  and 
English  political  life  a  relatively  clean  affair.  So  much  it  owes 
to  its  poetical  partner.  But  the  sneering  phase  will  pass, 
unless  our  national  character  has  suffered  a  sudden  and  com- 
plete change,  which  characters,  either  individual  or  national, 
are  not  apt  to  do.  Then  it  will  be  seen  once  more  that  the 
function  of  the  statesman  in  our  island  economy  is  the  attaining 
of  the  high  ideals  which  have  been  set  for  him  by  the  poet. 

The  statesman  is  the  executant  in  that  fellowship.  He 
must  bring  these  El  Dorados  and  Utopias  into  the  region  of 
"  practical  politics."  He  it  is  who  must  declare  that  "  Here 
or  nowhere  is  America "  ;  and  proceed  to  make  it  so.  And 
because  he  is  the  man  of  action,  the  practical  person  who,  by 
208 


THE    LAW    AND    THE    PROPHETS 

dint  of  here  a  little  and  there  a  little,  does  at  last  get  some- 
thing done,  the  national  love  of  action  and  solid  attainment 
elects  him  the  predominant  partner.  He  may  have  a  very 
indifferent  measure  of  success :  he  has  not  yet,  so  far  as  I 
have  heard,  created  Utopia.  But  in  popular  estimation,  which 
is  not  always  wrong,  he  is,  as  they  say,  "the  real  thing";  and 
the  poet  is  nowhere,  by  comparison. 

Who  and  what  is  your  poet  compared  with  a  real  live 
Member  of  Parliament  ?  I  hear  our  engaging  Romantic,  so 
lately  dismissed,  snort  with  rage  in  the  distance.  Yet  the  cold 
truth  is  that  in  a  crowd  of  average  English  people  the  poet  will, 
at  best,  take  a  second  place  to  the  Member  for  Deepdene.  He 
takes,  as  we  have  seen,  a  second  place  in  the  Abbey.  You  reach 
the  monuments  of  the  poets  only  after  passing  through  an 
avenue  of  statesmen.  You  read  the  history  of  the  Abbey  and 
learn  the  facts  of  Chaucer's  burial.  They  are  illuminating  in 
this  regard.  For  Chaucer  got  his  place  here  almost  by  in- 
advertence. In  old  age  and  poverty  he  rented  a  small  house  in 
the  garden  of  the  monastery,  on  the  site  where  stands  now  the 
Lady  Chapel  of  Henry  VH.  He  had  been  employed  for  a  time 
as  Clerk  to  the  Works  at  Westminster  Palace,  and  consequently 
held  office  in  the  royal  household.  It  was  probably  by  reason 
of  this  slight  link  with  royalty  that  they  buried  him  in  the 
Abbey ;  and  they  can  have  thought  very  little  indeed  about  his 
poetry,  because  he  had  no  monument  for  over  a  century  and  a 
half.  The  only  sign  to  mark  the  whereabouts  of  his  grave 
during  that  long  period  was  an  epitaph  on  a  leaden  tablet  which 
hung  from  an  adjacent  pillar.     But  even  that  was  not  a  tribute 

O  209 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

of  his  compatriots.  Our  prophets  have  no  honour  in  their  own 
country ;  and  it  is  significant  that  Chaucer's  sole  memorial  was 
an  epitaph  written  by  a  foreigner.  To  this  day  one  has  to  go 
abroad  to  discover  the  greatness  of  Shakespeare — or  Byron, 
who  will  be  quoted  to  your  confusion  in  Italy,  Germany,  or 
France.  That  Surigonius  of  Milan,  the  foreign  poet  who 
wrote  Chaucer's  epitaph,  should  have  been  of  the  Italy  that 
Chaucer  loved  so  well  would  doubtless  sufficiently  console  his 
shade  for  the  neglect  of  his  countrymen.  He  had  learned  not 
to  expect  too  much,  in  spite  of  (or  was  it  perhaps  because  of?) 
the  favours  of  three  successive  kings.  And  at  any  rate  he  had 
too  sane  a  temper  to  care  greatly  what  fame  might  do  to  his 
reputation,  and  too  sweet  a  soul  to  resent  her  follies.  Irony 
was  not  much  in  his  line,  particularly  of  the  tragic  variety. 
And  when  at  last  they  did  give  him  a  memorial,  none  would 
have  laughed  more  heartily  than  he  at  the  fact  that  it  was 
a  second-hand  one.  He  would  have  thought  it  a  delicious 
joke. 

The  tomb  of  Chaucer  in  the  Poets'  Corner  of  the  south 
transept,  which  we  all  gaze  at  so  reverently — and  so  we  ought, 
indeed,  for  it  is  a  lovely  thing — was  not  made  for  Chaucer. 
Nobody  knows  whom  it  was  made  for ;  but  Mrs  Murray  Smith 
thinks  it  might  have  come  from  one  of  the  city  churches  which, 
in  that  era  of  Dissolution,  were  being  dismantled.  In  any 
case,  in  1551,  that  is,  151  years  after  he  was  buried,  Nicholas 
Brigham,  who  was  a  poet  himself  and  knew  how  to  love  and 
honour  poetry,  procured  the  tomb  and  set  it  up  where  it  stands. 
A  portrait  of  Chaucer  was  painted  on  the  back  of  it ;  and  it  is 
210 


THE    LAW    AND    THE    PROPHETS 

said  that  the  poet's  body  was  removed  into  it  from  his  grave  at 
the  entrance  to  the  Chapel  of  St  Benedict.  But  even  that  fact, 
alas,  is  by  no  means  established  ;  and  arriving  at  last  at  this  the 
whole  truth  about  the  monument  of  the  English  nation  to  the 
Father  of  English  Poetry,  we  find  that  it  has  certain  curious 
aspects.  First,  that  it  was  not  erected  by  the  nation  at  all ; 
second,  that  it  was  ravished  from  some  other  church  and  had 
contained  some  other  poor  body;  and,  lastly,  that  in  all  pro- 
bability it  does  not  contain  the  ashes  of  the  poet.  It  is  true 
that  such  irony  would  only  disturb  that  merry  shade  to  a  gust 
of  laughter ;  and  yet  the  mere  recorder  of  the  facts  cannot  but 
taste  their  bitter  flavour. 

But  contrast  now  the  fate  of  the  statesman  of  Chaucer's  day 
who  was  buried  in  the  Abbey.  John  of  Waltham  was  strictly 
Chaucer's  contemporary.  He  was  buried  in  1395,  just  five 
years  before  the  poet.  He  too  had  enjoyed  royal  favour,  for 
Richard  H  had  exalted  him  to  be  Lord  Treasurer,  Keeper  of  the 
Privy  Seal,  and  Master  of  the  Rolls.  True,  he  was  Bishop  of 
Salisbury,  and  therefore  also  had  ecclesiastical  dignity ;  but 
that  was  never  alleged  as  the  cause  of  the  unique  honour  that 
was  paid  to  him  in  his  burial.  No,  he  was  laid  in  the  Chapel 
of  the  Kings  (the  only  unroyal  person  who  ever  found  a  place 
there)  on  the  deliberate  command  of  Richard  H,  because  he  was 
that  King's  favourite.  Nothing  inadvertent  or  hesitating  about 
this  interment!  It  was,  indeed,  a  thought  too  deliberate  and 
wilful  for  the  taste  of  good  conventional  people  and  ecclesiastical 
authority.  But  a  protesting  abbot  could  be  squared  *'  by  gifts 
of  money  and   vestments " ;   and   the   early  ancestress  of  Mrs 

211 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Grundy,  after  the  manner  of  her  remote  descendants,  soon 
forgot  to  frown  when  authority  smiled. 

Meanwhile  the  King,  because  he  loved  his  Master  of  the 
Rolls  "  and  greatly  bewailed  his  death,"  did  not  intend  to  let 
him  lie  unmarked  in  his  honoured  grave.  He  caused  to  be 
prepared  a  beautiful  brass  to  lie  upon  it,  representing  him  in 
his  bishop's  robes  and  insignia.  And  this  may  be  seen  in  the 
mosaic  pavement  of  the  Chapel  of  the  Kings,  south  of  the 
tomb  of  Edward  I.  The  statesman,  then,  who  made  so  big  a 
figure  in  his  life,  who  died  laden  with  honours  the  very  names 
of  which  strike  awe  to  Englishmen,  and  who  was  royally 
entombed  between  the  Shrine  of  the  Confessor  and  the  greatest 
Edward,  is  a  sufficient  contrast  to  our  poet,  dying  poor  and 
getting  buried  obscurely. 

Did  we  not  conclude  that  the  poet,  in  the  popular  eye  which 
estimates  the  brave  show  of  life,  was  simply  nowhere  beside  the 
politician  ?  And  yet  one  pauses  a  moment,  recollecting  some- 
thing. Who  in  his  life  ever  before  heard  of  John  of  Waltham  ? 
Certainly  not  I.  And  who  ever  goes  to  the  Abbey  to  see 
John  of  Waltham's  tomb  ?  Perhaps,  now  and  then,  a  solitary 
of  the  strange  race  of  brass-rubbers.  Yet  the  second-hand 
tomb  in  Poets'  Corner  draws  to  it  like  a  magnet  the 
feet  of  wandering  Britishers  from  all  quarters  of  the  globe  ; 
the  hearts  of  foolish  Britons  beat  rather  more  quickly  as 
they  look  at  it  ;  and  hosts  of  small  children,  happily 
careless  and  uncomprehending  of  everything  else  in  this 
funny  old  dark  building,  know  quite  well  what  this  spot 
means,  and  gaze   at    it  with    sweet   solemn    faces.      Irony  has 

212 


THE    LAW    AND    THE    PROPHETS 

another  flavour  now,  and  the  laughing  shade  is  avenged.     Hut 
it  is  little  he  cares  about  that. 

The  story  of  the  first  statesman  and  the  first  poet  buried 
in  the  Abbey  might  almost  be  a  little  parable  of  the  relations 
between  the  two  spheres  in  succeeding  ages.  Perhaps  they  set 
a  precedent  for  it.  On  the  whole,  there  has  been  poverty 
and  obscurity  for  the  man  of  letters,  but  affluence  and  honours 
for  the  statesman  ;  on  the  whole,  success  and  applause  for  the 
statesman  and,  except  among  a  lettered  circle,  unpopularity  and 
indignity  for  the  poet.  The  very  aspect  of  the  north  transept 
contrasts  in  this  sense  with  that  of  the  south.  It  is  true  that  in 
numbers  the  poets  outrun  Law,  even  though  they  are  not  all 
buried  here.  In  addition  to  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Keats,  the 
greatest  of  all  are  missing.  Shakespeare  is  not  there,  as  some 
allege  because  of  the  anathema  inscribed  on  his  tomb  at 
Stratford-on-Avon  against  any  who  should  move  his  bones. 
But  the  more  probable  reason  is  that  he  was  not  in  the  circle  of 
Court  poets.  The  close  connexion  between  the  Abbey  and  the 
Throne  operated  more  than  once  to  exclude  the  best  and  in- 
clude the  second-best ;  though  it  is  fair  to  add  that  the  Church 
played  its  part  in  interpreting  the  royal  will.  Thus  Milton  is 
not  here,  though  Congreve  is :  he  had  a  magnificent  funeral, 
and  lay  in  state  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber.  Coleridge  is  at 
Highgate,  Southey  at  Keswick,  and  Wordsworth  at  Grasmere : 
and  these  do  not  exhaust  the  roll  of  English  poets  who  will 
not  be  found  in  the  English  Valhalla.  Yet  most  of  them  have 
memorials  here,  outnumbering,  as  we  said,  those  of  the  law- 
makers in  the  north  transept ;  and  there  is  a  difference  between 

213 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

them  which  stresses  their  different  fate.  The  monuments  of  the 
statesmen  may  not  make  a  large  claim  as  art ;  but  at  least  they 
present  a  show  of  dignity  and  importance ;  whereas  the  motley 
crowd  in  the  south  transept  can  lay  claim  to  nothing  but  a 
catholicity  of  taste  and  judgment  run  rather  mad.  The  states- 
man, as  is  evident  from  the  cenotaphs,  generally  got  his  share 
of  cakes  and  ale.  The  poet,  more  often  than  not,  got  nothing  at 
all,  partly  because  no  one  thought  of  offering  him  his  share, 
and  partly  because  he  was  too  proud  to  claim  it.  It  becomes 
monotonous  to  read,  time  after  time,  how  he  lived,  so  to  speak, 
in  a  garret,  and  died  in  poverty.  History  in  this  respect  is 
highly  unoriginal.  But — and  here  again  one  is  brought  up 
short— not  less  regular  and  inevitable  is  her  repetition  of  the 
fact  that  after  the  cakes  and  ale  are  finished  and  the  brave 
show  is  done,  it  is  the  Living  Word  of  the  poet  which  survives. 
So,  at  long  last,  the  Spirit  of  Poetry  triumphs ;  and  Milton's 
sonnet  Oji  Shakespeav  does  but  state  the  bare  truth,  not  of 
him  only,  but  of  every  one  of  our  long  line  of  poets  whose 
work  has  become  a  national  possession  : 

What  needs  my  Shakespear  for  his  honour'd  bones, 

The  labour  of  an  age  in  piled  stones, 

Or  that  his  hallow'd  reliques  should  be  hid 

Under  a  star-ypointing  Pyramid  ? 

Dear  son  of  memory,  great  heir  of  Fame, 

What  need'st  thou  such  weak  witness  of  thy  name  ? 

Thou  in  our  wonder  and  astonishment 

Hast  built  thyself  a  live-long  monument. 

And  so  sepulcher'd  in  such  pomp  dost  lie, 
That  kings  for  such  a  tomb  would  wish  to  die. 

214 


THE    LAW    AND    THE    PROPHETS 

But  in  the  meantime  the  difference  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
Law-maker  and  the  Poet,  and  in,  so  to  speak,  their  style  and 
manner,  rather  obscures  the  union  of  which  we  were  speaking. 
Who  would  guess  that  the  parti-coloured  and  rather  dis- 
hevelled gentleman  of  the  south  transept  is  own  brother  to 
the  spruce  and  stately  person  of  the  north  ?  Or,  since  blood- 
relationships  leave  room  for  bewildering  diversity,  who  would 
guess  that  the  Maenad  of  the  south  transept  and  the  sober 
Law-maker  of  the  north  are  twin  souls  born  of  the  Spirit  of 
England  ?  Yet  that  appears  to  be  the  plain  truth.  Our  race 
expresses  itself,  at  its  highest,  in  the  idea  of  Justice  and  of 
Liberty,  which  is  to  say,  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  The  one 
is  its  intellectual  achievement,  the  other  its  spiritual  grace. 
The  one  is  its  science,  the  other  its  art.  The  one  is  its  inborn 
character,  the  other  its  heaven-sent  genius.  The  one  is  the 
civilizing  power  of  order:  the  other  the  illuminating  power  of 
light.  The  one  is  constructive,  rational,  patient :  the  other  is 
imaginative,  visionary,  creative.  The  one  fulfils  itself  through 
Politics  and  the  other  in  Poetry. 

It  has  chanced  in  our  history  that  these  two  native 
qualities  have  been  sometimes  paired  in  two  pre-eminent  men 
as  the  leaders  of  their  generation.  Thus,  as  we  have  seen, 
there  were  Chaucer  and  John  of  Waltham.  Thus  again,  in 
the  spacious  Elizabethan  days,  there  were  Burleigh  and 
Spenser.  One  does  not  call  on  the  name  of  Shakespeare  here, 
because  he  cannot  be  lightly  coupled  in  this  way.  No  other 
mind  can  match  him :  all  others  are,  in  a  sense,  included  in  his, 
for  the  Spirit  of  England  at  its  highest  moment  was  concen- 

215 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

trated  in  him.  But  Spenser  is  a  representative  figure,  as  is 
Burleigh,  Minister  to  the  great  Elizabeth  and  founder  of  the 
Cecil  race  of  statesmen.  Lord  Burleigh  is  not  buried  in  the 
Abbey,  but  his  funeral  service  was  held  there  in  1598.  Spenser 
was  the  first  poet  after  Chaucer  to  be  buried  in  Poets'  Corner. 
He  too  died  poor ;  but  his  fame  was  safe,  for  he  was  the 
darling  of  his  compeers.  He  was  buried  with  great  honour  in 
1599-  Other  poets  from  that  astonishing  Elizabethan  band — 
Ben  Jonson,  Francis  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  and  perhaps  Shake- 
speare himself,  brought  funeral  elegies  to  throw  into  his  grave, 
with  the  pens  with  which  they  were  written.  Some  of  them 
followed  the  Poet's  Poet  to  a  tomb  in  the  Abbey  when  their 
turn  came.  Ben  Jonson  and  the  Beaumonts,  Drayton  and 
Davenant  and  Ayton  lie  here. 

A  century  later  saw  another  pairing  in  Milton  and  in 
Cromwell.  This  was  a  portent  which  she  who  had  mothered 
them  could  not  understand  :  so  she  cast  them  both  out  from 
her.  The  fate  of  Cromwell's  bones  v/e  already  know ;  and 
Milton  lies  in  St  Giles',  Cripplegate.  He  was  buried  there 
in  1674.  Royalist  feeling  was  too  strong  against  him  to  lay 
him  in  the  Abbey,  and  a  chance  memorial  word  of  him  in 
some  one  else's  epitaph  was  ordered  by  the  Dean  to  be  erased. 
It  was  not  until  1737  that  England  began  with  shame  to  realize 
that  she  had  again  rejected  one  of  her  prophets  ;  and  a  tardy 
monument  was  put  up  in  the  Abbey. 

In  Victorian  times  the  dual  elements  appeared  again  in 
two  famous  men.  On  Gladstone  and  on  Tennyson  descended 
the  cloak  of  the  law-maker  and  the  prophet.  In  them  perhaps 
216 


THE    LAW    AND    THE    PROPHETS 

is  seen  at  the  clearest  this  close  English  union  between  the 
Spirit  of  Justice  and  of  Liberty,  of  Law  and  of  Poetry,  for  in 
these  two  it  is  often  the  statesman  who  is  the  poet  and  the 
poet  who  is  the  statesman.  Gladstone  pleading  passionately 
for  the  freedom  of  the  Irish  people  to  govern  themselves  : 
Gladstone  not  a  little  out  of  favour  with  his  royal  mistress  ; 
and  Tennyson  the  Laureate,  courtly  and  suave,  singing  in  his 
smooth,  sweet  music  about  laws  which  broaden  down  "  from 
precedent  to  precedent"  —  are  not  the  ancient  roles  here 
almost  interchangeable  ? 

But  there  have  been  periods  when  one  supreme  mind 
has  gathered  into  itself,  as  into  a  single  flame,  all  the  fires  of 
England's  spirit.  The  lofty  and  lonely  figure  was  then  either 
a  poet  or  a  statesman.  Such  a  time  was,  by  a  paradox,  the 
Elizabethan  era.  That  age,  rich  with  manifold  genius,  great 
in  statecraft  and  in  intellectual  curiosity,  equally  daring  in 
physical  and  spiritual  adventure,  discovering  with  the  zest 
of  youth  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  and  revelling  in  them 
with  young  exuberance — this  age,  with  all  its  shining  and 
eager  spirits,  was  summed  up  and  given  its  ultimate  expres- 
sion in  the  one  man  Shakespeare.  It  was  an  Age  of  Poetry, 
and  only  the  great  poet  could  finally  express  it.  But  in  the 
Age  of  Prose  the  great  statesman  was  the  pre-ordained.  The 
figure  of  Chatham  stands  out  of  the  eighteenth  century  as 
England's  most  eminent  man,  uniting  richly  in  himself  the 
genius  of  both  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  Like  Shake- 
speare in  his  day,  Chatham  was  surrounded  by  brilliant  men 
who  were  eminent  in  his  own  sphere.     Shakespeare  had  his 

217 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

constellation  of  poets,  many  of  whom  lie  in  the  Abbey. 
Chatham  in  like  manner  had  his  planetary  setting  of  states- 
men— Fox,  Grenville,  Grattan,  Castlereagh,  Newcastle,  and 
others ;  and  most  of  these,  too,  have  places  here.  It  was  an 
Age  of  Reason  and  of  Law:  an  age,  significantly,  of  the 
growing  power  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  great 
statesman  was  inevitably  its  supreme  mind.  Therefore  in 
Chatham's  hands  lay  England's  destiny,  and  he  swayed  it 
powerfully  in  the  direction  which  the  genius  of  statecraft  will 
always  take — toward  material  aggrandisement,  military  strength, 
defensive  alliances,  and  every  bold  measure  which  should  tend 
to  give  his  country  a  proud  and  secure  position  among  the 
nations. 

Yet  in  Chatham,  where  perhaps  one  would  least  expect  to 
find  it,  lived  the  idealism  of  the  poet.  In  this  practical  person, 
a  man  of  action  above  all,  a  strong  son  of  the  age  of  reason, 
proud,  ambitious,  inconsistent,  burnt  the  unpractical  and  irra- 
tional fire  of  the  dreamer.  We  are  not  now  concerned  with 
a  complete  portrait  of  Chatham,  but  only  with  essential  features. 
They  are  very  clear.  Honesty  of  purpose,  austerity  of  life, 
incorruptibility  of  character,  ardent  patriotism,  and  strong  love 
of  liberty  are  the  poetical  qualities  at  the  base  of  his  immense 
practical  success  and  popularity.  The  fact  but  serves  to 
remind  us  once  more  how  closely  associated  are  the  two 
elements  in  English  life.  Do  they  come,  perhaps,  from  cen- 
turies of  mental  nurture  on  Roman  law  and  Greek  poetry? 
It  is  possible.  Our  statesmen  are  bred  in  an  atmosphere  of 
poetry,  and  our  men  of  letters  so  often  have  given  themselves 
218 


THE    LAW    AND    THE    PROPHETS 

to  a  study  of  law.  Yet  something  native  to  the  English 
character  paradoxically  combines  the  two.  So  that  we  have  a 
practical  Pitt  joining  forces  with  an  idealist  Wilberforce  for 
the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade ;  or  a  serious  and  responsible 
Gladstone  passionately  enthusiastic  for  the  liberty  of  Ireland. 

On  the  ground  of  liberty,  indeed,  these  highest  representa- 
tives of  the  national  spirit  have  always  met  and  greeted.  One 
might  take  as  a  clear  example  their  long  campaign  together 
for  the  freeing  of  slaves.  The  men  who  bore  the  brunt  of  that 
Crusade  for  the  greater  part  of  a  century  were  sober  politicians  : 
some  of  them  plain  members  of  the  House  of  Commons.  But 
to  their  patient  and  determined  policy  was  added  the  zeal  of  the 
enthusiast :  they  were  at  the  same  time  poets  and  law-makers. 
Wilberforce,  whose  name  is  most  familiar  because  it  is  associated 
with  the  victory  of  the  Abolitionist  cause,  lies  in  the  north 
transept.  But  Granville  Sharp,  who  literally  devoted  his  life 
to  the  defence  of  the  negroes,  has  a  memorial  in  Poets'  Corner ; 
and  Zachary  Macaulay  and  Powell  Buxton  both  have  monu- 
ments. It  is  a  group  of  names  which  illustrates  very  simply 
and  strikingly  the  English  ideal  of  liberty  and  our  manner  of 
achieving  it.  It  illustrates  also  the  way  in  which  that  poetical 
ideal  works  itself  out  in  service.  Through  the  too  tedious 
machinery  of  petitions,  and  bills,  and  amendments,  the  idea 
grows  by  small  degrees  into  imperfect  law,  and  the  law  is 
often  found  to  be  an  instrument  for  the  greater  freedom  of 
mankind.  That  is  the  point  toward  which  the  statesman  and 
the  poet,  in  the  relation  that  we  have  been  considering,  tend 
to  converge.     In  humanitarian   service,  not  of  our  own  race 

219 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

alone  but  of  others  also,  England  has  sometimes  united  those 
two  great  forces  of  her  spirit.  It  is  a  union  exemplified  in  a 
supreme  altruist  like  Livingstone,  or  in  the  less  brilliant  figures 
of  philanthropists  who  lie  buried  in  the  Abbey.  In  so  far, 
then,  as  England  has  been  a  civilizing  and  liberating  power, 
she  owes  it  to  her  Spirit  of  Law  and  of  Poetry :  and  in  so 
far  as  English  folk  would  seem  by  the  evidence  of  their  Abbey 
to  have  somehow  formed  a  habit  of  humane  service,  it  was 
because  they  remembered  (though  they  would  be  too  shy  to 
confess  it)  that  this  is  all  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  that  ye 
love  one  another. 


220 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


John  Flete  (c.  1425) 

Stow 
Henry  Keepe 


F.  Sandford 
J.  Crull 
Browne  Willis 
John  Dart 
Richard  Widmore 
John  Weever 
Richard  Gough 
Neale  and  Brayley 
L.  N.  Cottingham 

J.  G.  Nichols 
Mackenzie  Walcott 

G.  G.  Scott 
C.  H.  Cooper 
A.  P.  Stanley 

M.  C.  and  E.  T.  Bradley 
William  Morris 

Alfred  Higgins 

H.  J.  Feasey 

L.  G.  W.  Legg 

E.  T.  Murray  Smith 
(E.  T.  Bradley) 


History     of     Westminster     Abbey,     ed.     by 

J.  Armitage  Robinson  1909 

Survey  of  London  1598 

Monumenta  Westtnonasteriensia  1682 

Lives  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  Rolls  Series, 

ed.  by  H.  R.  Luard  1858 

Genealogical  History  1 707 

The  Antiquities  of  St  Peter's  1711 

Mitred  A  bbies  1715 

Westmonasterium  1 742 

An  History  of  the  Church  of  St  Peter  175 1 

Ancient  Funeral  Monuments  ^7^7 

Sepulchral  Monuments  of  Great  Britain  1786 

The  History  of  the  Abbey  Church  18 18 

Plans  and  Details  of  Henry  VII  Chapel  1822 

Decorative  Tiles  {for floor  of  the  Chapter  House)  1 845 

Memorials  of  Westminster  1 849 

Gleanings  from  Westminster  Abbey  1863 

Memoir  of  Margaret,  Countess  of  Richmond  1874 

Historical  Memorials  of  Westminster  Abbey, 

Sth  ed.  1882 

Popular  Guide  to  Westminster  Abbey  1885 

A  paper  on  the  Abbey  written  for  the  Society 

for  the  Protection  of  Ancient  Buildings  i  S93 

"  Renaissance  Work  at  Westminster,"  a  paper 

in  the  Archceological  Journal  1894 

Westminster  Abbey  1899 

English  Coronation  Records  1901 

The  Roll-Call  of  Westminster  Abbey  1902 


221 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY 

Violet  Brooke-Hunt     The  Story  of  Westminster  Abbey  1902 

Westminster  Abbey  and  the  King's  Craftsmen  1906 

New  Guide  to  Westminster  Abbey  1909 

Westminster  Abbey  1909 

The  Nave  of  Westminster  Abbey  1909 

Founders  of  Westminster  Abbey  191 1 

Our  Kings  and  Westminster  Abbey  191 1 

Westminster  (Story  of  the  English  Towns)  1919 

Two  papers  on  the  Abbey  buildings  in 
Archceological  Journal,  xxxiii  and  li, 
and  a  paper,  "The  Statues  in  Henry 
VH  Chapel,"  in  Archcsologia,  xlvii 


W.  R.  Lethaby 
H.  F.  Westlake 
Francis  Bond 
R.  B.  Rackham 
H.  Troutbeck 
Agatha  Twining 
H.  F.  Westlake 
J.  T.  Micklethwaite 


Westminster  Abbey  Scrubbed 


By  United  Press 

LONDON,  Jan.  10. —  Workmen 
scrambling  over  the  sides  and  top 
of  Westminster  Abbey  in  giving 
that  gigantic  edifice  its  first  scrub- 
bing in  centuries,  discovered  two 
marble  figures  of  angels  carved  in 
the  thirteenth  century. 

The  two  pieces,  exquisitely 
enameled  in  color  even  to  the  rosy 
complexions,  were  found  on  the  cor- 
ners  of    the    window   of   the  south 


transept,  buried  beneath  nearly  an 
inch  of  grime. 

More  remarkable  discoveries  are 
expected  by  those  directing  the 
work,  who  maintain  the  task  will 
require  at  least  five  years.  Be- 
cause of  the  unknown  condition  of 
the  stone  work  the  job  presents 
many  hazards  and  workmen  must 
of  necessity,  proceed  with  their 
task  8lowtr< 


U.D  18 
I 


D     000  411  970     7 


